By ROD McGUIRK | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

MEL­BOURNE, Aus­tralia (AP) — Weary af­ter two years of some of the harsh­est COVID-19 bor­der re­stric­tions in the world, many Aus­tralians want­ed ten­nis star No­vak Djokovic kicked out of their coun­try for trav­el­ing to a ten­nis tour­na­ment with­out be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed.

But the back­drop to the gov­ern­ment’s tough line on the de­fend­ing Aus­tralian Open cham­pi­on — and Prime Min­is­ter Scott Mor­ri­son’s de­scrip­tion of the ex­pul­sion as a “de­ci­sion to keep our bor­ders strong” — dates to near­ly a decade ago. It al­so shines a light on Aus­tralia’s com­pli­cat­ed, and strong­ly crit­i­cized, im­mi­gra­tion and bor­der poli­cies.

Back in 2013, the bor­der is­sue wasn’t un­vac­ci­nat­ed for­eign­ers like Djokovic but thou­sands of asy­lum seek­ers from Asia, the Mid­dle East and Africa who flocked to Aus­tralia on rick­ety fish­ing boats from In­done­sian ports.

Now, with the next elec­tion due by May, Djokovic has be­come the new fo­cus of the gov­ern­ment’s claim to a tough stance on bor­der pro­tec­tion that lead­ers hope will win votes. The op­po­si­tion, mean­while, ar­gues that Djokovic has ex­posed gov­ern­ment fail­ures in bor­der con­trol and its pan­dem­ic re­sponse.

Refugee ac­tivists say the ten­nis star’s treat­ment ex­pos­es the harsh treat­ment of dozens of oth­ers de­tained be­cause of visa is­sues.

Wide­spread anger fol­lowed a Djokovic post on so­cial me­dia on Jan. 4 that said he had been grant­ed “ex­emp­tion per­mis­sion” to fly quar­an­tine-free to Aus­tralia to play ten­nis. He had been ap­proved by an au­to­mat­ed visa ap­pli­ca­tion process days ear­li­er.

Djokovic ar­rived at a time when some Aus­tralians’ over­seas rel­a­tives still aren’t able to vis­it be­cause their COVID-19 vac­cine types aren’t rec­og­nized by Aus­tralian au­thor­i­ties.

Ten­nis fan Hol­ly Mc­Cann, who at­tend­ed the first day of the Aus­tralian Open on Mon­day, said Djokovic did not de­serve to be an ex­cep­tion to strict bor­der rules.

“It should be the rule is the rule, re­gard­less of your sta­tus,” Mc­Cann said. “I have noth­ing against him per­son­al­ly, but I don’t think he should be an ex­cep­tion.”

When an ex­ple­tive-laden off-air con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Sev­en Net­work tele­vi­sion an­chors Mike Amor and Re­bec­ca Mad­dern sav­aging Djokovic’s char­ac­ter and gov­ern­ment bungling of his case was some­how post­ed on­line, view­er re­spons­es were over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive, sug­gest­ing a strong urge for Djokovic to be kicked out.

A poll pub­lished by The Sun Her­ald and Sun­day Age news­pa­pers on Sun­day showed 71% of re­spon­dents did not want Djokovic to be al­lowed to stay in Aus­tralia.

In 2013, when a con­ser­v­a­tive coali­tion won the first of three con­sec­u­tive elec­tions, Mor­ri­son, the then-new min­is­ter for Im­mi­gra­tion and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion, played a key role in re­vamp­ing what had seemed to many the in­sur­mount­able and po­lit­i­cal­ly dam­ag­ing prob­lem of dai­ly unau­tho­rized boat ar­rivals.

Mor­ri­son took cred­it as gov­ern­ment ves­sels turned back boats and asy­lum seek­ers were sent to im­mi­gra­tion cen­tres on poor is­land na­tions in­stead of the Aus­tralian main­land.

Djokovic’s days in Aus­tralia were large­ly spent in the cramped Park Ho­tel, which is used for im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion, while he fought in the courts to stay in Mel­bourne. This was wel­comed by refugee ad­vo­cates for the in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion it fo­cused on 60 oth­er peo­ple kept in the same high-rise build­ing be­cause they don’t have visas.

When Djokovic’s visa was first can­celled, Mor­ri­son tweet­ed, “Rules are rules, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to our bor­ders.”

But Mel­bourne-based refugee ad­vo­cate Ian Rin­toul not­ed that un­like oth­er refugees and asy­lum seek­ers who shared the Park Ho­tel with the wealthy celebri­ty, Djokovic was not hand­cuffed when he was es­cort­ed from the build­ing.

“Many peo­ple learned that there are refugees be­ing held pris­on­er by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment for the first time be­cause of No­vak Djokovic,” Rin­toul said. “That’s the sil­ver lin­ing to this fi­as­co.”

The po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sion to de­port Djokovic was made by Im­mi­gra­tion Min­is­ter Alex Hawke af­ter a court over­turned a pre­vi­ous de­ci­sion by a bor­der of­fi­cial to can­cel his visa on pro­ce­dur­al grounds when he ar­rived at Mel­bourne air­port 11 days ear­li­er.

Con­fus­ing­ly, Aus­tralia can­celled Djokovic’s visa twice for dif­fer­ent rea­sons.

In the first in­stance, the visa was can­celled be­cause his di­ag­no­sis with COVID-19 in Ser­bia last month did not qual­i­fy him for an ex­emp­tion from Aus­tralia’s bor­der rules. For­eign vis­i­tors have to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed or pro­vide a med­ical cer­tifi­cate as ev­i­dence that they can­not be in­oc­u­lat­ed for health rea­sons.

Djokovic had re­lied on ex­emp­tions from vac­cine rules pro­vid­ed by Ten­nis Aus­tralia and the Vic­to­ria state gov­ern­ment.

The 34-year-old Serb was fi­nal­ly de­port­ed be­cause Hawke re­gard­ed him as a “tal­is­man of a com­mu­ni­ty of an­ti-vac­ci­na­tion sen­ti­ment” whose pres­ence might en­cour­age Aus­tralians to em­u­late his flout­ing of pan­dem­ic safe­ty mea­sures.

Bor­der pro­tec­tion has been a re­cur­ring theme in Mor­ri­son’s rise to pow­er. While pop­u­lar at home, the bor­der poli­cies were wide­ly crit­i­cized as in­hu­mane and an ab­ro­ga­tion of Aus­tralia’s in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions to refugees.

Those in ho­tel de­ten­tion with Djokovic came to Aus­tralia from camps in Nau­ru and Papua New Guinea for med­ical treat­ment and then gained a court in­junc­tion pre­vent­ing them from be­ing sent back. Some have been de­tained in ho­tels for more than two years, Rin­toul, the refugee ad­vo­cate, said.

For al­most two years fol­low­ing the start of the pan­dem­ic, thou­sands of over­seas Aus­tralians were re­fused per­mis­sion to re­turn home to go to rel­a­tives’ death beds, fu­ner­als, wed­dings and to be in­tro­duced to new-born fam­i­ly mem­bers.

Con­sid­ered cru­el by many, the trav­el ban kept Aus­tralia’s pan­dem­ic death toll down and was sup­port­ed by a ma­jor­i­ty of Aus­tralians.

But a re­lax­ation of trav­el re­stric­tions a month ago be­cause of high vac­ci­na­tion lev­els and the ar­rival of the high­ly con­ta­gious omi­cron vari­ant have re­sult­ed in Aus­tralia record­ing as many coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions in the first weeks of 2022 as it tal­lied in the pre­vi­ous two years of the pan­dem­ic.

Mor­ri­son has laid the blame for Djokovic’s ill-fat­ed Aus­tralian trip square­ly on the ten­nis star.

But op­po­si­tion spokesper­son Kristi­na Ke­neal­ly said there was no ex­cuse for the gov­ern­ment is­su­ing a visa in the first place for “a known an­ti-vax pro­po­nent”.

“This has been a mon­u­men­tal bun­gle at our bor­ders by the Mor­ri­son gov­ern­ment. They want to run around and pat them­selves on the back about it. They de­serve a kick up the back­side,” she said.