WA Premier Mark McGowan slams NSW, spruiks his surplus

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan has renewed his feud with the NSW government, saying the state had ‘comprehensively failed’ its people.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Jackson Flindell

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan has renewed his feud with the NSW government, saying the state had “comprehensively failed” its people and was responsible for a wave of Covid ­infections around the country.

Speaking after he flagged a $2.4bn forecast operating surplus for the current financial year – a windfall that will do nothing to dampen Mr Perrottet’s calls for an overhaul of the GST carve-up methodology – Mr McGowan said NSW was trying to blame other states for its failures.

“NSW are the architects of their position,” he said.

“The government in NSW failed. They don’t like to hear it and the commentators in NSW don’t like to hear it, but they did.”

He highlighted the contrast between the forecast deficit ­announced by NSW on Thursday, and the $32bn net debt carried by WA, as a sign of NSW’s shortcomings.

“They announced today a deficit of nearly $20bn. Their one-year deficit in NSW is two-thirds of the entire state debt of Western Australia that has been racked up over the last 120 years and they’ve achieved that in one year. They’ve failed comprehensively,” he said.

He said NSW’s financial problems stemmed from their failure to adequately lock down when Covid was gaining a foothold earlier this year.

“They were out there saying gold standard contact tracing would solve the problem. Well it didn’t. Then they paid the price, and the rest of the country paid the price as well,” he said.

“They infected Victoria twice, they infected New Zealand. They did it to us, but we did what had to be done in late June and we got rid of the virus here, which of course no one over there acknowledges or remembers.”

The latest attack came as the WA government revealed the state remained on track for a healthy budget surplus despite a sharp fall in iron ore price.

The Premier said pay rises for public servants would be brought forward, ending a freeze on sal­aries that it put in place when it came to power in 2017. Workers will receive a 2.5 per cent pay increase each year for two years plus either a $1000 sign-on bonus or a 0.25 per cent productivity-linked bonus. Both options, Mr McGowan said, would be ahead of the rate of inflation.

With WA preparing to reconnect with the rest of the country and the world from February 5, when it will lift its ongoing border restrictions, Mr McGowan announced an $80m funding package that would allow casual workers who needed to isolate as a result of Covid tests to receive a payment of up to $320. The funding, which will cover the next two years, suggests that about 250,000 casual workers will be required to isolate over that period.

Mr McGowan said the state still expected to push ahead with WA’s reopening plans, despite the worsening Omicron outbreak in the eastern states.

Rather than delay the reopening, he said WA was more likely to impose harsher restrictions and requirements, such as broader mask requirements, if the outbreak required it.

“The chances are it will get here anyway at some point so it’s better we do it on our own terms, with high vaccination levels, and with the right public health and social measures, with the right contact tracing in place, and a huge increase in hospital beds as well,” he said.

“We’ve got to make sure we plan for it and get high levels of vaccination.”