Hope rises as sun sets on ‘hard border’

Mark McGowan set to announce the end of strict quarantine requirement­s for travellers from NSW, Victoria.

Wooleen Station owners David and Frances Pollock, with Pippa, on their property in the South Murchison area of Western Australia. Picture: Tony McDonough

The fenced borders of vast Wooleen Station, 700km northeast of Perth, are on a distant horizon, but the gaze of pastoralist couple Frances and David Pollock­ has been firmly focused on the borders between­ Western Australia and the rest of the nation.

They feel excited that “the eastern staters” may soon be welcomed back to enjoy Wooleen’s unique story of cattle, homestead hospitality and a conservation battle being won to protect their native pastures.

Premier Mark McGowan is likely to announce on Monday the end of strict quarantine requirement­s for travellers from NSW and Victoria, although he has warned that new COVID-19 outbreaks could slam the WA border shut again “in a heartbeat”.

The Pollocks are optimistic and say the state’s Wander out Yonder campaign is luring Australian holidaymakers to the west.

“For those in the eastern states, it encourages them to go as far as they can go right now,” says Ms Pollock, who adds that visiting WA “is the closest thing to an inter­national holiday”.

“We’ll be looking to reconnect with all our eastern states guests that we sadly had to cancel in 2020.”

She says many guests “were kind enough to leave their accommodation deposits sitting in trust for re-booking”.

The decision on whether to lift restrictions on entry to WA from the two most populous states will either press the button on travel plans by thousands of families seeking to reunite, or dash their hopes in the lead-up to Christmas.

Pressure on Mr McGowan to move on from his hitherto popular “hard border” policy is intensifying as his party swings into campaign mode for the next state election, due in March.

Labor also faces a new challenge in Zac Kirkup, the youthful Liberal MP who took over two weeks ago when former leader Lisa Harvey stepped down.

Mr McGowan held a media conference on Sunday that hinted at a strategy to deliver glad tidings in time for Christmas. He announced that the state budget surplus had gone up since the $1.2bn positive forecast announced last month.

He said record iron ore prices and a property boon had added another billion dollars to the budget surplus, resulting in a $2.2bn spending bonus.

The surplus forecast, which he said contrasted with deficits in all other states, would go towards a new $1.8bn maternity and babies hospital in Perth, to replace the outdated King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women.

The announcement of the new hospital on Sunday is part of Labor’s emerging spending strategy. It follows Mr McGowan’s ­announcement a week earlier of a $152m upgrade to the Peel Health Campus, which is located in the heart of the Opposition Leader’s marginal electorate, which Mr Kirkup holds by a handful of votes.

The Premier said the mining industry, which is enjoying ­record iron ore prices that reached about $183 a tonne last week, had performed strongly throughout the pandemic and delivered extra royalties for the state. “The property sector has also been extremely strong and there’s a lot of confidence in Western Australia, which has delivered revenues as well,” Mr McGowan said.

State building bonus grants introduced earlier this year had helped land sales peak at 500 sales a week. “Keeping COVID out and keeping our economy strong has meant that our situation has recovered more quickly than we thought,” he said.

Tour operators from Perth to the Kimberley and Tourism Council WA are hoping that Monday’s border decision will provide certainty for tourism businesses to take bookings and for visitors intending to travel to WA. A recent industry survey showed that more than 60 per cent of tourism businesses were concerned WA was losing bookings to states such as Queensland, which were open.

Tourism Council WA chief Evan Hall says more than 60 per cent of WA’s interstate visitors come from NSW and Victoria, injecting more than $1bn annually into the WA economy.

The Pollocks say the seven-month “hard border” policy stopped visitation for months, but bookings kept coming.

“We noticed a surge in bookings when people here realised they wouldn’t be leaving WA for a while,” Ms Pollock said.

“Even when we had internal state borders that prevented people from Perth coming north, we started getting bookings ­because people thought, ‘Surely I can get up there later in the year’.”

They say the loss of vital tourist dollars was slightly offset by higher prices for cattle, due to panic meat buying and livestock farmers in the eastern states buying up large quantities of WA sheep and cattle to restock after seven years of drought.

As they look forward to an eased border policy, the Pollocks say their next challenge lies in dry weather trends in the rangelands.

“Last year we got below half the average rainfall, and this year it looks like we’ll have just over a quarter of the average,” says Ms Pollock. “It’s starting to get a bit interesting.”