Rita Panahi: Test debacle is instant karma for WA isolationists

If WA wants to be its own country and lock out the rest of Australia then it can forget about sympathy for losing its Ashes Test match.

Australia and New Zealand do battle in Perth in 2019. Picture: AAP

The good folk of WA see themselves as West Australians first and Australians second.

A survey conducted by the Centre for Independent Studies earlier this year found that while more than 80 per cent of the inhabitants of every other state see themselves as Australian first, in WA a whopping 55 per cent express a stronger connection to their state than their country.

It helps explain why they have cheered on every insane restriction, border closure and inhumane measure to protect WA from the dirty, disease-riddled eastern states.

So, there wasn’t much sympathy when the sandgropers got a dose of instant karma this week and were stripped of their Ashes Test match.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: NCA NewsWire

Cricket Australia made the right call in telling Mark McGowan where he could stick his absurd border restrictions.

Requiring everyone in the travelling party to submit to 14 days of quarantine after flying in from Sydney is utterly unhinged. As is the push by the Labor government to secure the second Test.

WA Sports Minister Tony Buti wants Cricket Australia to rearrange the calendar to accommodate his state’s isolationist folly.

“If cricket isn’t able to meet our border rules for the fifth Test in Perth, then they should move the second Test to Perth instead,” Buti said.

“It’s a no-brainer … the simple solution would be to bring that Test here while South Australia manages its Covid outbreak. Adelaide can then host the fifth Test originally scheduled for Perth.”

Talk about delusional.

If WA wants to be its own country and lockout the rest of Australia then it can forget about any sympathy for its self-inflicted plight.

The truth is the overwhelming majority of West Australians support McGowan’s harebrained Covid-zero lunacy. Now they can reap the rewards.

And, they will still have to contend with Covid-19 outbreaks, hospitalisations and deaths once they reopen their borders.