Coronavirus: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian urges states to reopen borders before trans-Tasman bubble

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says other states must reopen borders well before a trans-Tasman ‘bubble’ is established.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: AAP

The Labor premiers of Western Australia and Queensland are staring down calls from Gladys Berejiklian to reopen their borders as soon as possible, warning they will not put their citizens at risk while there is still community transmission in the most populous states.

The stoush comes as state governments begin easing restrictions and rebooting their economies, with the NSW Premier revealing she believed interstate travel would be critical in bolstering trade and encouraging a flexible workforce.

“I’ve been quietly having a gibe at all of my state colleagues who have their borders shut. NSW didn’t, Victoria didn’t,” Ms Berejiklian, a Liberal premier, told Sky News.

“We appreciated the key to our economic success will be to improve our supply chains and our manufacturing base amongst Australia, so you do need to get those borders open as soon as possible in my view.

“Imagine if we had more of our 25 million population visiting places around Australia? That is enormous potential. The sooner we can do that the better, in a safe way.

“I don’t want to be able to say to people, ‘I’m allowed to go to Auckland before I can go to Brisbane or before I can go to Perth’.”

The push from NSW, which is most reliant on tourism, was swiftly rejected by Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

The Queensland leader said the state’s border with NSW would remain closed until the larger state eradicated all cases of community transmission of COVID-19.

Ms Berejiklian said on Sunday she did not believe the coronavirus could be eradicated completely in NSW due to the size of its population but it was “getting really close to literally crushing the curve, not just flattening it”.
“Those border restrictions will remain in place while there is active community transmission in NSW and Victoria. It would be absolutely negligent of me to lift those restrictions with that community transmission happening,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

The Queensland government will review border closures at the end of the month.

Ms Palaszczuk raised the possibility that Queensland would “partner” with some other states where the spread of the virus appeared to be under control.

Western Australia has no timeframe on when its border closure will be lifted. Mr McGowan said: “Our isolation is our greatest advantage.

“Victoria and NSW have new cases every single day and that means there is some community spread in those states. So they are clearly more vulnerable and more infected than Western Australia.

“That’s why we are cautious about bringing down the borders with the east.”

NSW confirmed one new coronavirus case on Sunday, with a second to be added to Monday’s total, and Victoria’s cases increased by seven.

Ms Berejiklian said the states had managed to get the health balance during the pandemic right but now had to achieve an economic balance.

COAG ‘clumsy, bureaucratic’

The NSW Premier also blasted the Council of Australian Governments as clumsy, very bureaucratic and full of red tape and said the national cabinet format proved that changes could be achieved in a timely way without getting “bogged down” in regulation.

Asked if national cabinet should consider GST reform, the NSW Premier said everything should be on the table but she would not support anything that increased the burden on her citizens.

Ms Berejiklian said NSW would set its own tone in dealing with China but acknowledged she did not have to walk the tightrope the federal government did in trying to maintain the national interest.

Tensions between Australia and China have escalated in recent weeks as Scott Morrison called for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, with China threatening to impose 80 per cent tariffs on Australian barley and banning beef imports from four Australian abattoirs.

Mr McGowan and Ms Palaszczuk have expressed concerns Australia might be dragged into a trade war.

“I would say to my state premiers, not that they would welcome the advice and I’m sure I’ll be careful what advice I take from them, but certainly there’s nothing to preclude us as state premiers from doing what we think is appropriate at a provincial level,” Ms Berejiklian said.

“But we have to deeply respect the commonwealth’s ability to manage our security issues, our trade issues, our diplomatic issues based on what they think is in the national interest.”