WA Premier Mark McGowan says NSW should look at other states to see COVID-19 can be ‘killed’

WA Premier Mark McGowan has reaffirmed his argument that NSW should “kill” COVID-19 rather than live with it.

WA Premier Mark McGowan has taken another swing at the NSW government for its handling of COVID-19, urging everyone in the state to “look outside” and see other jurisdictions have successfully “killed” the virus.

NSW officially recorded three new cases of coronavirus overnight, as well as two others after the daily cut-off, while WA continues to have a hard border in place for the “medium risk” state.

Comparing Queensland to NSW, Mr McGowan said it would be best to eliminate the virus from Australia.

“The idea that you tick along with the virus and somehow that is a better model is wrong,” Mr McGowan told reporters on Monday.

“I just urge the NSW government and people in NSW to look outside of NSW at what other states and territories are doing in order to crush and kill the virus.”

A traveller has their G2G pass verified by police at Perth Airport. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images

Queensland did not record any new local cases overnight and Mr McGowan said he was very pleased with how the state was going as it prepared to finish its three-day lockdown.

“It would have been no doubt debilitating and difficult, but they did the right thing,” he said.

“We need to eliminate the virus from Australia.

“It would be, I think, advisable if NSW eliminated the virus from Sydney and that would of course mean that we could rest a lot easier across Australia.”

WA has shut its border to travellers from Queensland, NSW and Victoria. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images

Last week, WA shut its border to Queensland travellers after a hotel quarantine cleaner in Brisbane tested positive for the very contagious UK strain of COVID-19.

The Premier said he would await further health advice before considering when to reopen the border to Queensland travellers, noting Brisbane would have a further 10 days of restrictions.

“I wouldn’t expect we’d take any action before Queensland ensures they don’t have community spread of the virus, but at the end of that point in time we’ll get further health advice,” Mr McGowan said.

“Queensland doesn’t know if they’ve got community spread … and this is the British strain, which is highly contagious and obviously causing mass deaths across Britain.”

Asked if WA could reopen to Queensland after those 10 days if there were no new cases, rather than the usual 28 days, Mr McGowan said it would depend on the health advice.

WA also has a hard border in place with Victoria.