Photo: DPA/Lukas Coch
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Australians will be voting in a few months, and the latest polls have looked bleak for Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Too many voters seem dissatisfied with his performance during the corona crisis. The saga of the Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic therefore comes at the right time for Morrison. Because it allows him to fall back on a strategy that brought his predecessor John Howard the 2001 election victory.
After a group of refugees were rescued from a container ship in the Indian Ocean, Howard, amidst 9/11 fear, staged the incident as a national security issue. His words “we decide who comes to this country and the circumstances under which they come” resonated with the electorate.
Morrison’s current position is reminiscent of that incident. When the prime minister announced on Twitter on Thursday that the tennis star’s visa had been canceled, the prime minister wrote: “Rules are rules, especially when it comes to our limits.” Nobody would stand above these rules. The exemption from entry to the Australian Open for the presumably unvaccinated Djokovic had caused annoyance the day before after the Australians had to endure closed borders and months of lockdowns in recent years.
In the past, Morrison always had the people behind him when he was in a tough position. His approval ratings rose after he took tough measures as immigration minister to stop smugglers who were bringing refugees to Australia by boat. As premier, his polls soared after he went into confrontation with American tech firms or asked China to conduct an independent investigation into the pandemic. Now case Djokovic could help him.
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