Frydenberg warns jobs at risk if WA keeps border up when vaccination rates hit targets

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has again waded into a COVID stoush with the WA government, this time warning jobs would be lost if states didn’t follow the nationally agreed plan.

“If the borders remain shut and if all states don’t follow the plan, jobs will be lost, businesses will close, the wellbeing of Australians will suffer, our debt burden will increase and our recovery will be slowed,” he told ABC Radio on Thursday.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Queensland or Western Australia may not have the number of cases we’ve seen in the southern states but whether it’s a week or whether it’s a month, they will see Delta outbreaks in their states, and it’s important that they encourage their population to get vaccinated and to follow this pathway out of living the virus.

“Every other country around the world is learning to live with COVID, and it seems that in Queensland and Western Australia there’s a denial of the reality that we need to do that.”

The federal government has ramped up attacks on the Queensland and WA governments they insisted in recent weeks that borders and lockdowns would continue to be used to fight COVID outbreaks, even as vaccination rates hit 70 and 80 per cent targets.

On Monday, Mr Frydenberg said the states’ border positions could lead to a “ridiculous” scenario where New South Wales residents could fly to Bali before Perth.

WA Senator and federal Attorney-General Michaelia Cash said on Wednesday while the government had no intention to challenge state borders if WA hit an 80 per cent vaccination rate, a High Court challenge may have more chance of success than Clive Palmer’s failed legal action in 2020.

According to the COVID transition plan agreed to at the national cabinet in July, borders and lockdowns would start easing after 70 per cent vaccinations but in WA that would also require the reintroduction restrictions such as social distancing and masks.

On Wednesday, Mr McGowan described the federal government’s continued commentary on the state’s borders as “crazy bullying” and said removing borders and reintroducing restrictions would cost jobs, not save them.

“Why are they on this mission to bring COVID into Western Australia to infect our public to ensure that we shut down parts of the economy, that we lose jobs, people get sick and some people die?” he said.

“Haven’t they seen what’s happening in New South Wales? I can’t understand why they’re doing this.

“The Liberals’ headlong push to open borders to infected States is fraught with danger. If the Liberals have their way they will introduce COVID-19 to Western Australia and cost thousands of jobs and some lives.”

Mr McGowan said he was not concerned about any future High Court challenge.

“The federal Attorney-General, saying this, obviously would encourage someone like Clive Palmer, or someone else with his attitudes to bring on another High Court challenge, but we did it once before, we won in the High Court and obviously, if we have to do it, we’ll do it again,” he said.

On Wednesday, bosses from 80 major Australian companies penned a letter to state and territory leaders demanding they stick to the national plan.

The letter included the chief executives of some of the biggest employers in the country including BHP and Wesfarmers and warned that Australia’s economy could regress if states strayed from a uniform approach to reopening the country.

“Providing a light at the end of the tunnel will encourage more Australians to get vaccinated,” the letter said.

“We need to give people something to hope for, something to look forward to, something to plan around, and to be confident about their futures.”

According to the national accounts released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday WA’s economy outperformed every other state with 4.3 per cent growth in 2020-21, its biggest jump in eight years.