Australia peas... Are you trying to keep Johnny Depp?

No, we shipped him and his dogs out...that was the whole point.

The facts (in short) as an island continent there are many diseases that affect flora and fauna that we don't have over here and as such we have some of the strictest quarantine laws in the world to make sure we don't get them. One of the biggest ones is rabies (we have lyssavirus that affects bats/flying foxes) but so far no actual 'rabies' like you have in the USA.
Therefore any pets that are brought over from other countries must stay in quarantine for around 3 months (off the top of my head without looking it up)

So Jonny Depp flies in on a private jet, which is *apparently* (though obviously not too well) inspected by our customs. Seemingly no problems.
Then Johnny Depp's two little Yorkies are suddenly turn up at a groomers near where he is shooting his movie and there's pictures of them posted on social media.
Then all hell breaks out because obviously those dogs have not been in quarantine. Then our Minister for Agriculture went a bit crazy and said "he had 50 hours to get those dogs out of the country or he would have them destroyed"
Johnny had to fly the dogs out again.

Now Johnny is still in trouble for illegally smuggling those animals into the country. From what I have read if he is officially charged the penalties are up to 10 years in prison or $340,000 fine.

Now while I doubt those adorable little dogs have rabies, I also don't think famous people have any right to act outside the law either. Our minister was right in that Depp and most other people involved in the movie would have known about the quarantine issues because they have had extensive dealings with them about monkeys and other animals used in the filming of the various Pirates movies.

However I don't think our Minister handled it well either, acting like some sort of vigilante talking out "seizing his dogs and euthanizing them"...there was a much more tactful and calm way to handle this and still send the exact same message.

I'm sure Johnny makes $340,000 before lunch on most days so the fine won't mean much, BUT hopefully it has highlighted the issue and other people may not try to do the same thing.
Johnny might be 100% sure his dogs don't have rabies (and so would I) but that really isn't the point, there can't be one law for famous rich people with private jets and another law for everyone else.

ETA: if we have a choice, Johnny wins over Justin any day!! Does anyone want Beiber these days?