Qantas boss Alan Joyce likens WA to North Korea in brutal sledge

Qantas boss Alan Joyce has unloaded on Mark McGowan for keeping the West Australian border shut, delivering one brutal barb.

Qantas boss Alan Joyce has unleashed on Western Australia, accusing the state of acting like North Korea by keeping its borders closed.

Mr Joyce said Australians should be “enraged” that they could travel to London but not to Perth.

“There isn’t a plan for when that’s going to open up – it’s starting to look like North Korea. It’s gonna (sic) be closed indefinitely at this stage,” Mr Joyce told 3AW Radio on Friday.

WA Premier Mark McGowan has kept the state’s borders shut. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sharon Smith

The Qantas boss is furious that WA backflipped on its plans to reopen on February 5.

“We’re supposed to all be Australians, but you can’t even travel around your own country,” he said.

“(The WA border) is going to be closed indefinitely at this stage – unless we have a plan to start living with Covid and opening up to the rest of the country.

“The fact that we can travel to London but we can’t travel to Perth, I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with the federation.”

WA was preparing to open its borders once 90 per cent of the state’s residents had been double vaccinated, and the plan was to welcome visitors from Saturday.

But Premier Mark McGowan changed his mind last month, saying the planned opening date would have been “reckless and irresponsible” given the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce slammed Western Australia. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Australia’s borders have been shut to most foreign tourists for the majority of the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hinted international tourists could be welcome again by Easter.

“Well, I can’t give you a specific date yet … and that’s because we’re just watching how Omicron is sort of washing over the eastern states,” he told 4CA radio in Cairns last week.

“I’d like to see us get there soon – certainly before Easter, well before Easter.”

Originally published as Qantas boss Alan Joyce likens WA to North Korea in brutal sledge