East-west coronavirus border row heats up

Gladys Berejiklian has hit back at Mark McGowan over his claims that her COVID-19 strategy was wrong and at odds with the rest of the country.

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Getty Images

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has hit back at WA Premier Mark McGowan over his claims that her COVID-19 strategy was wrong and at odds with the rest of the country.

Ms Berejiklian said she “couldn’t care less” about the criticism but suggested Mr McGowan didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Anyone who thinks we’re going to eliminate or eradicate this disease, unfortunately doesn’t appreciate what the pandemic means,” she said.

Mr McGowan on Monday said NSW’s focus on suppression of the virus, rather than elimination, was at odds with the rest of the states and territories and urged NSW to follow the lead of jurisdictions such as Victoria and Queensland.

But Ms Berejiklian pointed out NSW had taken in 100,000 returning Australians since the beginning of the pandemic, by far the largest number of any state.

“We have to appreciate that when you are welcoming back overseas travellers, Australians coming back to Australia, you do have to accept that the disease is still there, so to suggest you can somehow eliminate the disease from Australia, I don’t think is realistic,” she said.

“I don’t believe keeping your borders closed and inflicting pain and suffering on thousands of people is the way to go.”

Ms Berejiklian also suggested Mr McGowan had little faith in his own contact tracing teams.

“Public health and safety always comes first but because we have confidence in our health system and health team, we’re able to make decisions which perhaps other state governments aren’t prepared to make.

“I don’t want a situation in NSW that exists in other states where there’s a lack of certainty, things are done very quickly without, perhaps, the same kind of consideration we give in NSW.”

Deputy Premier John Barilaro warned Mr McGowan his COVID-19 lecturing could “bite him on the bum”. “He seems to like to lecture NSW … if he wants to be the goose, he can continue to make those comments,” Mr Barilaro told the ABC.

“We’ve had COVID deaths in this nation but we’re going to have more deaths from mental health, from people being locked away in isolation, people not being able to reunite with family, and Mark McGowan, that’s actually what he stands for.”

Mr McGowan wasn’t taking a backward step in the spat.

“People here don’t want the virus,” he said.

“NSW seems to think it’s okay to have the virus ticking along in the community and you just deal with it in individual suburbs and individual venues … I’d rather just get rid of it. We’ve done that now for nine months in WA, we’ve had the best record of anywhere in the world.”

WA this week marked nine months without a case of community transmission of the virus.