WA border restrictions: Premier Mark McGowan expects to set date for permanent hard border removal by December

Mark McGowan expects WA will be in a position to set a date to permanently remove hard borders with the eastern states by December. While cautioning the pandemic made planning unpredictable, the WA Premier this morning said he hoped to provide clearer guidance on travel restrictions by the end of the year. “I would expect in December we would be able to look towards something in that regard,” Mr McGowan said. “But the thing about COVID is you set dates and they move. Every time I set a date it changes. So we can't give a definitive timeframe at this point.” In the lead up to the Budget, Mr McGowan told The West that hard borders might remain in place until “February, March or April” but he has since refused to repeat that speculation. The eventual dismantling of WA’s hard border remains tied to the State achieving vaccination rates “above 80 per cent” at which Mr McGowan has said he would set a date six to eight weeks later for re-opening. At the current pace of the rollout, WA is now on track to achieve 80 per cent vaccination of all West Australians aged 16 and over by early December and 90 per cent by the end of the year. However, that does not take into account vaccine hesitancy, with a proportion of the population expected to refuse the jab. It also does not include adolescents aged 12 to 15, who Mr McGowan has said would be counted towards the State’s overall vaccination rate. The Premier also confirmed travellers from NSW would not be permitted into WA for Christmas — even if they were fully immunised. “Even though you might be vaccinated, you can still transmit the virus, it just reduces your prospect of transmission,” he said. “So we're just going to have a very strong approach to these things. We'll make a decision when it's safe to do so to bring down borders with NSW and Victoria.” When announcing a record $5.6 billion surplus yesterday Mr McGowan predicted other States would be “wildly angry” and ramp up efforts to wind back the GST fix put in place in 2018. NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet came out swinging this morning, labelling Mr MCGowan the “Gollum of Australian politics”. “You can just picture him over there in his cave with his little precious — the GST,” he said. Mr McGowan declined to respond to the Lord of the Rings-inspired jibe, saying “I'm not too worried about what they say”. Asked whether it was fair to compare WA to a cave — a metaphor first used by Prime Minister Scott Morrison — Mr McGowan was more forthcoming. “If this is a cave, it's a pretty good cave,” he said. “We’re certainly the most free and open society in Australia, perhaps the world. “We’re doing very well economically and in a health sense, and I think West Australians should be very pleased with what they've achieved.” On GST, Mr McGowan said other States were agitating to bring forward a planned 2025 review of the new system, which guarantees WA retains 70c for every dollar of the tax collected within the State. “All I can tell you is what I know from my meetings with the (State) Treasurers where they raise it every meeting, to seek to have it reviewed,” Mr McGowan said. “Or their commentary in their budgets whereby they blame the GST distribution for their financial situation. So obviously all the other States are pursuing this.” Mr Morrison has repeatedly ruled out prematurely re-visiting the GST system but Mr McGowan said WA faced a longer term battle ensuring the floor remained in place beyond 2025. “We'll do everything we can to stop (future changes) and seek assurances from all sides of politics irrespective of the review that's coming up,” the Premier said.