Premier Roger Cook digs in on WA’s hard-border policy

While the hard border caused angst for those wanting to enter WA, it had the fewest Covid deaths and the shortest lockdowns of any state.

WA Premier Roger Cook: ‘We saved literally thousands of lives through the measures that we put in place.’ Picture: Sharon Smith / NewsWire

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One of the key architects of Western Australia’s controversial Covid regime has hit back at the criticisms levelled at the states in the Covid inquiry report released on Tuesday.

Premier Roger Cook, who was health minister under Mark McGowan during the early years of the pandemic and who is one of the last senior state political figures still standing from that era, said the state’s response was “world-leading”.

“We saved literally thousands of lives through the measures that we put in place,” he said. “But in addition to that, we kept our mining industry going and as a result of that we kept the nation’s economy going, which meant the federal government could afford for the pensions, for the payments that they provided to people on the east coast who were all in lockdown. I think the federal inquirers need to remind themselves of those facts.”

While the report did not single out individual premiers, it did attack the border closures used extensively in Western Australia and Queensland for lacking rationale and causing damage. The report warned that the government response to Covid had driven an erosion of trust that could undermine future health initiatives.

Mark McGowan led Western Australia throughout the pandemic. Picture: Colin Murty

In addition to its strict border controls, Western Australia also introduced the broadest Covid vaccination mandates of any jurisdiction. WA had both the fewest Covid deaths per capita of any state, as well as the least number of days in lockdown.

Mr Cook said the trust of West Australians in their government had never been higher than it was through the Covid period. “If (border closures) made … lives uncomfortable for a few people, while we were literally saving thousands of lives, then so be it,” he said.

While WA’s border policies sparked tensions with other states, Mr McGowan was rewarded by voters with the most emphatic election victory in the state’s history in 2021. Labor won 53 of 59 upper house seats, with the Liberals reduced to just two seats.

Labor then leveraged Mr McGowan’s ongoing popularity in the 2022 federal election, with the party’s strong result in the west delivering Anthony Albanese the prime ministership.

Mr McGowan, who resigned in June last year, declined to comment.