WA hard border should be lifted to create a travel bubble with NT and SA, says WA Liberal Leader Liza Harvey

WA’s border restrictions with the NT should be loosened to create a travel bubble between Western Australia and the Northern Territory, says WA Liberal leader Liza Harvey

Police check vehicles on the South Australia and Northern Territory border. Calls have been renewed for a tri-state border opening between WA, the NT and South Australia. Picture Chloe Erlich

WA’s border restrictions with the NT should be loosened to create a travel bubble between Western Australia and the Northern Territory, says WA Liberal leader Liza Harvey.

The WA Opposition Leader urged Premier Mark McGowan to loosen border restrictions with the Territory, and with South Australia — all jurisdictions with no evidence of community spread of coronavirus — after it was found 21,000 people entered WA from interstate since its April 5 border closure.

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“It proves the Premier’s hard border has been exposed as a complete myth,” Ms Harvey told WA Today.

“It’s time for Mr McGowan to stop playing political games and end his ridiculous rhetoric that the WA economy couldn’t be reopened in a COVID-safe way without the borders.

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“It is incomprehensible that he won’t even consider a staged approach to pulling down the border that would allow a travel bubble between South Australia and the Northern Territory.”

Calls for a tri-state pact began in May after Darwin Major Business Group chair Ian Kew said the three states’ lack of coronavirus cases presented economic benefits, in particular to the tourism industry.

“We believe with protocols the NT, South Australian and WA borders could be opened sooner rather than later,” he told the NT News at the time.

“Rather than being the last we could be one of the first jurisdictions to open up, but that’s an example of the thinking that is going on inside of the NT Government without consulting business and industry that do have solutions to some of those things … and that is concerning.”

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Chief Minister Michael Gunner has maintained borders will be the “the absolute last thing to go”, with restrictions to be reviewed weekly from June 15.

On May 13, Mr McGowan said having a hard border was his state’s “strongest weapon” and would be the last restriction lifted. A spokesman from SA Premier Steven Marshall’s office said his position on maintaining the state’s border restrictions had not changed.