Rules are rules, Prime Minister Scott Morrison tweeted last week when unvaccinated world number one male tennis player Novak Djokovic flew into Melbourne only to have his visa cancelled.
Four days later Judge Anthony Kelly, in the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Melbourne, agreed: rules are rules, and Djokovic had followed them all the way from Belgrade to the immigration counter at Melbourne airport, where Border Force officials were waiting for him just before midnight.
After more than five hours of questioning, where the player was incommunicado, Djokovic asked whether Border Force officials could wait until around 8:30am so he could call on Tennis Australia officials and his legal representative to help sort out what the issues were.
They agreed, but shortly after reneged suggesting, "bizarrely" according to his legal representatives, that he would be better off accepting his visa cancellation without speaking to them first.
Djokovic's legal team said he was pressured. The Home Affairs legal team said he might have "felt" pressured, but it wasn't the intention of the Border Force staff.
The judge made up his own mind. The decision to cancel the visa was unreasonable in the circumstances.
One of the reasons given for urging Djokovic to accept his visa cancellation was that the Border Force official who had been questioning him was nearing the end of his shift.
Far from being the end of this story though, Djokovic might yet be deported.
Prior to the court adjourning, it was revealed the Minister for Immigration, Alex Hawke, was considering exercising his personal power of cancellation.
Judge Kelly expressed his disappointment, saying, "The stakes have now risen, rather than receded," and mentioned not just the disproportionate personal and professional cost to Djokovic if such a decision was taken, but that a potential three-year ban from re-entering the country would seem an extraordinarily high price to pay for not being vaccinated.
Late into Monday night a ministerial statement said the minister was "currently considering the matter and the process remains ongoing". Under sub section 133C (3) of the Commonwealth Migration Act the minister may cancel a visa "if he is satisfied that it would be in the public interest to do so".
Given the volume of public anger over an unvaccinated tennis player flying into the city and state that has suffered the most during two years of Australia's COVID-19 lockdowns, the minister might be feeling pretty comfortable in the knowledge he would have their support.
Then there's the upcoming federal election to consider.
Being tough on borders is a proven vote winner. It is also both short-sighted and inward looking.
Melbourne's self-described "sporting capital of the world" status is already looking dubious. Despite the best efforts to maintain the Australian Open as "the players' tournament", that light has dimmed through COVID and more so with this current fiasco.
But it isn't the only event that will be tainted.
Athletes can no longer unquestioningly believe Australia is a friendly, safe destination. Future Australian bids to host major sporting events will have to argue hard to convince sports governing bodies that the safe passage of athletes, from arrival terminal to sporting event, can be guaranteed. The experience of the past week will be remembered for years to come. Serbia, and Serbians, will never forget.
This year the FIBA Women's Basketball World Championships are being held in Sydney. Next year Australia will host the biggest women's sporting event on the planet, the FIFA 2023 World Cup. Not every nation that will qualify for the tournaments will be ones where, like Australia, 90 per cent of the population is vaccinated and we isolate if we test positive.
As of this month, according to the Brookings Institution, only 5 per cent of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated, compared to 70 per cent in high-income countries.
Not all athletes are as forthright as Novak Djokovic. Most will not be comfortable declaring if they are unvaccinated, which might be through personal choice or political circumstance. Certainly, none of them would want to share Djokovic's experience of detention, or the prospect of taking on the Australian government in a court of law to be able to play the game they came to contest.
But more than anything, outsiders are looking in and questioning whether Judge Kelly's Australia, like democracies everywhere, is on the slide — where proportionality, legal reasonableness, and fairness still matter; where the rule of law is respected and upheld.
Or does real life now imitate virtual reality — where people can be cancelled because we don't like their choices, their attitudes and their views, where we shop around until we get the verdict we are looking for?
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke's decision will provide the answer to those questions.
For now, though, the Djokovic family is celebrating.
"Justice has won, the rule of law has won," Djokovic's father, Srjdan, told a Belgrade press conference late on Monday night while his tennis-playing son had already made his way from one court to another, hitting balls at Melbourne Park, warming up for what will be remembered as the most drama-filled Australian Open in history.
"It's his greatest victory yet," said his mother, Dijana.
On this trip, it might be his only one.
