WA Premier Mark McGowan indicates state will stay to closed to NSW

Premier Mark McGowan gives a strong indication he won’t rush to open to NSW travellers in light of its Covid outbreak.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Colin Murty

West Australian premier Mark McGowan has given a strong indication that he will not be opening the border to travellers from New South Wales for the foreseeable future, in light of that state’s Covid outbreak and historically high daily infection rate.

“If you bring down the border while the virus is running wild, then you’ll bring in the virus,” he said on Thursday. The WA government does not permit entry by anyone from New South Wales, designated a “medium-risk state”, unless they have special exemption.

He said he was surprised that residents of Sydney suffering a major outbreak of community transmission appeared not to be heeding medical advice. “It’s an odd thing – I’ve seen some of the images and it’s odd that they are so flippant about it. We now see people in intensive care and on ventilators in New South Wales, and some of those people may die.

“All I would say to the people of New South Wales is follow the rules. My experience here is that people overwhelmingly follow the rules.”

He said he welcomed clarification by NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian that she doesn’t agree with the view expressed by her own health minister that if the government can’t get the virus under control, they may need to see it run.

“You can’t just allow the virus to run and then expect every other state to have their border down and import it to other states,” he said.

“That would not be fair. So if a state goes rogue in an irresponsible fashion, then you’ve got to expect other states to use the measures we have to protect ourselves from that state.”

Asked how long WA could keep its hard border against NSW in place, he said: “If a state has spread of the virus and it continues on, like in Victoria last year until they got it under control, then you’ll have border measures in place while there is community spread.”

In contrast with NSW, restrictions will be relaxed for Victorians entering WA from Friday and they will no longer have to self isolate for two weeks.

Mr McGowan said he anticipated that in order for Australia to be able to open up its international borders, the nation’s vaccination rates “will need to be at least 80 per cent or higher.”

The arrival of an infected foreign seaman in the WA mid-north port of Geraldton on Monday has seen 18 staff at Geraldton hospital and eight visitors required to be quarantined and tested, after it was revealed a staff member got in a lift used by the infected sailor.

“We are advised the risk is miniscule,” he said, “but we have to be careful that we don’t have spread as a result of what occurred at that hospital.”

The foreign seaman from the ship was transferred to a Perth hospital, and is recovering. The Singaporean-flagged MV Emerald Indah that recently docked in Indonesia, has been denied permission to dock in Fremantle to pick up a grain cargo and is returning to Jakarta.