Birkenstocks and RM Williams hit off unlikely friendship on the shoe rack
In an unprecedented time in recent history, countries around the world are beginning to go into their own versions of lockdown to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus that began to break out at the end of 2019 in the city of Wuhan, China. Most countries have closed their national borders, and foreign relations bodies and embassies have explicitly instructed their nationals to return home. In Australia specifically, strict quarantining and self-isolation practices are settling into place in a bid to slow the spread of the virus.
A silver lining situation has emerged from the crisis for Hannah Johnson, a third year law student, who is reporting that her understanding of constitutional law has increased as a result of various Australian state governments’ decision to close their borders.
The Journal interviewed Hannah via Skype earlier yesterday to get her take on the situation.
“Yeah, I’ve been reading the news about the state borders closing up to contain the spread of rona [sic]” she said, sipping on a cup of tea in her pajamas at two forty five in the afternoon.
“I thought to myself, haha, I wonder if that’s legal. Turns out it is. Don’t ask me the sections of the Constitution, but apparently it says somewhere that the freedom of people to move around the country is not absolute, and the government can limit it for good reason, such as a pandemic. Which kind of sucks, because me and the girls had a trip booked out to Barossa for just after Easter. Oh well, guess that’ll have to wait.”
Hannah went on to say that seeing constitutional problems play out in real life made the stuffy legal document much more real. “They don’t teach you this (expletive) in law school. Nothing against the teaching staff or the 300-page constitutional law cases at all. I just sort of think that I probably wouldn’t have failed the subject had this happened before I took Const[itutional Law].”
Written by Ashton Darracott
This satire piece first appeared on The George Street Journal on January 21st 2021