Susie O’Brien: Out-of-step premiers creating a border fiasco

Our jab rates are among the highest in the world, but Australia’s borders remain a shambles thanks to despot premiers more concerned with protecting their own patch.

Australia’s border re-openings are a bloody shambles, as Ted Bullpit from Kingswood Country would say.

Today we see the Premier of the Wild West, Mark McGowan, declaring that he will not open to the eastern states before Christmas.

Doing so could prompt “all sorts of measures to restrict people’s activity, fun and excitement”, cowboy Mark said.

I reckon the people of WA would cop wearing masks if it meant they could celebrate Christmas with family from the eastern states.

McGowan is out of step with other premiers, who are all out of step with each other.

WA is letting in Queenslanders, but not people from Vic, ACT and NSW.

Premier of the Wild West, Mark McGowan says he will not open to the eastern states before Christmas. Picture: Tony McDonough

Victorians can go to Queensland from mid-December, unless Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk changes her mind.

But we can’t yet go to SA, WA or Tasmania.

How absurd that overseas visitors, who will now be able to come to Victoria and quarantine at home, have more rights than Victorians trying to visit Perth or Brissie right now.

It gets worse.

People from country NSW can come to Victoria without restriction if they are double-dosed. Sydneysiders and those from the ACT can come if they get a test and isolate until they are negative

But we can’t go there unless we’re willing to quarantine for 14 days.

How absurd that overseas visitors have more rights than Victorians trying to visit Perth or Brissie right now. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is too busy doing nothing much about climate change to give the border fiasco any attention.

He urgently needs to reconvene national cabinet and get all the state leaders together to work out some common ground rules.

All states should have the same approach to reopening when they meet the 70 and 80 per cent vaccination thresholds in the lead-up to Christmas and the summer holidays.

For instance, Tasmania will reopen at 90 per cent but in SA it’s only 80 per cent. It doesn’t help that there isn’t even a standard way of counting vaccinations – in WA they are counting over 12s whereas in most other states it’s over 16s.

If it was 2021, Ted Bullpit would not be going anywhere for a while.

At this point Australian vaccination rates are among the highest in the world, but we are ruled by a mob of despot premiers protecting their own patches instead of making decisions for the good of the country.

It’s no wonder many of us in Melbourne are giving up and holidaying locally this summer. Oh wait – at this point we can’t even do that, either.

What would Ted do? With holidays coming up, he’d shampoo the Kingswood’s dipstick, glad-wrap the aerial and Mr Sheen the number plate. But if it was 2021, he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.