'Doesn't Matter Who You Are': Australian PM Asks Kanye to Get Vaccinated Before His Tour Down Under

The Australian prime minister said this month that any foreigner who wants to enter the country must get vaccinated, at the same time defending the rights of Australian citizens to not get vaccinated. "In Australia, if you're an Australian, you're a citizen...you can be here and you can express your views", he stated.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Saturday urged American rap sensation Kanye West, who has legally changed his name to "Ye", to get fully vaccinated should he want to go ahead with his planned tour in the country in March.

"The rules are you've got to be fully vaccinated. They're the rules", Morrison said at a press conference at Beerwah, Queensland, on Saturday.

The Australian PM was responding to a journalist's question on whether he would allow the hip-hop artist to come to Australia. While the journalist pointed out to Morrison that West has had just "one jab", the rapper's vaccination status remains unclear.

"They [the rules] apply to everybody, as people have seen most recently. It doesn't matter who you are, they're the rules. Follow the rules, you can come. You don't follow the rules, you can't", Morrison remarked.

West, 44, has previously described the COVID vaccine as being a "mark of the beast".

"It's so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralysed. So when they say the way we're going to fix COVID is with a vaccine, I'm extremely cautious", West told Forbes in an interview given in July 2020.

"They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things, to make it where we can't cross the gates of heaven. I'm sorry when I say they, the humans that have the Devil inside them. And the sad thing is that, the saddest thing is that we all won't make it to heaven, that there'll be some of us that do not make it", West added.

The Australian prime minister's comments on West come days after the federal authorities deported world number one tennis star Novak Djokovic, who was scheduled to play at the Australian Open in Melbourne.

Djokovic was detained by Australian authorities over not being vaccinated, a decision that was overturned after he challenged it in court. However, Australia's Immigration Minister Alex Hawke cancelled Djokovic's visa after the court hearing.

An Australian government lawyer told the court that Djokovic's presence in the country could pose a public health risk and incite "anti-vaccination sentiment".