By Oliver Brown
There could hardly be a more damning illustration of Australia’s double standards on COVID-19. On Friday night, Matthew Wade, wicketkeeper for the host nation at the T20 World Cup, is competing against England in Melbourne despite having tested positive for the virus.
In the meantime, Novak Djokovic, still scarred by his deportation at the whim of a government desperate to demonise the unvaccinated, languishes in confusion as to whether he will even be allowed into the country to chase his 10th Australian Open title.
The inconsistency of the rules is enough to make you scream.
We saw as much at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where, after 10 days of fervent mask-wearing and bubble-forming befitting Australia’s perception of England as a plague zone, the green-and-gold fielded Tahlia McGrath for the women’s T20 final regardless of the fact she was COVID-positive.
Somehow, it perfectly encapsulated the hypocrisy that has defined much of Australia’s hard-line pandemic response. If there is a piece of dutiful COVID theatre to perform, its athletes are first in the queue. But if there is a match to be won, all protocols go out of the window.
This year, Australia, once so fanatical about trying to eliminate COVID that it threatened its own citizens with five years’ imprisonment if they dared return home from India, has belatedly rejoined the rest of the world.
The cases of Matthew Wade and Novak Djokovic highlight Australia’s hypocrisy on COVID-19.Credit:Getty
During the Ashes in December, it was still jumping at shadows, ruling captain Pat Cummins out of the Adelaide Test because he had stood close to somebody carrying the virus at a restaurant.
Today, such neurosis has subsided, to the point where Wade, far from needing to isolate, is at liberty to take on England in a crucial group game.
In one sense, the relaxations are to be welcomed. But in another, they expose the absurdity of what is still happening to Djokovic. The Serb remains scarred by his ordeal last winter, where he was incarcerated in a glorified Melbourne detention centre, then finally thrown out of Australia after the immigration minister ruled he could be a lightning rod for anti-vaxxers. It was, as the Australian Lawyers’ Alliance put it, an “Orwellian” decision that punished Djokovic more for the way he thought than the way he acted.
Nine months on, Djokovic cannot escape the cycle of retribution. While the cancellation of his visa threatens a three-year ban from Australia, the recent change of government has encouraged his team to hope for clemency.
Tahlia McGrath won gold in Birmingham while positive for COVID-19.Credit:Getty
That was until Karen Andrews, the shadow home affairs minister, declared: “It would be a slap in the face for those people in Australia who did the right thing if Djokovic were allowed back into the country, simply because he is a high-ranking tennis player with many millions of dollars.”
It is exactly the same wearisome populism that you heard so much last winter from Scott Morrison’s administration, in which Andrews served.
Djokovic simply became a whipping boy for a government restless to show that its uncompromising border policies applied for everybody. But it has always been a fallacy, this idea that Australia makes no exceptions when it comes to COVID.
As today’s scenes at the Melbourne Cricket Ground will highlight, it is one rule for Wade and quite another for Djokovic, the nation’s convenient pariah.
Oliver Brown is the London Telegraph’s chief sports writer.
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