YourLifeChoices regular and retired teacher Dianne Motton shares her views on the Novak Djokovic visa saga.

I vividly remember a history class I ran a few years ago. The topic of immigration and border controls came up and I tried to explain to the naïve 14-year-olds that just because they wanted to go to a particular country didn’t mean they had the right to go there. The looks on their faces could only be described as incredulous. “What, can’t I just go to America and stay there for as long as I like?” came one of the plaintive cries.

I realised that despite many of them travelling overseas, their parents had always taken care of visas and made sure that they met immigration requirements. They had no concept about the legalities of travel and migration.

I tried to explain the varying rules and regulations around visiting and staying in various countries and why the rules existed – a way of controlling population growth, skilled workers and keeping 'undesirables' out of their country.

I can still hear some of them muttering, “But that’s not fair”, a whinge from the privileged class.

Hence, when I read news reports about Novak Djokovic and comments his mother made, my memory flew back to that lesson. The same whinge was repeated in his mother’s plaintive cry. She claims, regarding her son’s visa problems, that it was “unfair that the immigration minister alone has the power to make a final ruling on deportation.” The entire Djokovic family has engaged in emotionally charged rhetoric, some of gargantuan proportions, claiming he has been “imprisoned” and “crucified”. Really??

I had to laugh at her naivety and her sense of entitlement and ignorance. All governments around the world have the ultimate right to refuse entry to their country to any of us. The immigration minister of any country is merely the figurehead who voices the government’s stance at that point in time. Try standing on the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea and demand that you be allowed in. No matter how famous or rich you are I doubt that Kim would be happy to acquiesce to your demands.

Particularly in these unprecedented COVID times, countries have closed borders, tightened their rules even for the casual holiday-maker and focused on the protection of their citizens and livelihoods. As they should and as they have a right to.

Victorians, having suffered some of the longest lockdowns in the world, have a right to be angry that someone like Djokovic can flaunt our federal immigration rules, finding loopholes to cleverly avoid vaccination. It is irrelevant whether he is a champion tennis player, whether he has a mass following that wants to see him play and win another Australian Open, or whether his playing will bring in the crowds and money to Rod Laver Arena.

He has not abided by the rules of our country. Send him home where he can lament with his family about the appalling treatment he has received. His sense of entitlement will never let him admit he was he wrong.

What are your thoughts on the Djokovic saga? Should he be allowed to stay and play in the Australian Open?