Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce told press, "There is a process if you want to bring animals: you get the permits, they go into quarantine and then you can have them. But if we start letting movie stars—even though they've been the Sexiest Man Alive twice—to come into our nation [and break the laws], then why don't we just break the laws for everybody? It's time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States. Just because he's Johnny Depp doesn't make him exempt from Australian laws.
The way this works is if we are going to make an excuse for Johnny Depp because he's got a private jet and brought in his dogs then I suppose you have to start making exemptions and excuses for everybody. The reason you can walk through a park in Brisbane and not have in the back of your mind, 'What happens if a rabid dog comes out and bites me or bites my kid?' is because we've kept that disease out. I'll tell you how close it is: it's in Bali, it's just next door. So this is not fanciful stuff, and therefore we're very diligent about what comes into our nation.”
