WA Premier Mark McGowan is on a collision course with the National Plan.

WA Premier Mark McGowan is on a collision course with the National Plan.

Asked if he would prevent Western Australia from reopening with the rest of the country Mr McGowan said he “hadn’t considered that”.

“Obviously it would be tightly managed and[international travel under Phase C] would only go to certain countries hopefully that are largely COVID-free,but again,these are issues for December or January,right now we are still in August,” he said.

“This state is going well and we want to keep it this way.

“I think[the Commonwealth] need to get with the program,and the program is states like Western Australia are COVID-free. We want to keep it that way for a long period of time and we want to continue to have a strong,free society.”

Phase C allows for the gradual reopening of inward and outward international travel,abolishment of caps on returning vaccinated Australians,the lifting of all restrictions on outbound travel for vaccinated Australians and extending unrestricted travel to selected countries.

Any diversion from the national agreement would set WA up for a border fight with the Commonwealth,which controls the international border and Perth Airport.

On Monday,treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it would be ridiculous if Australians could travel to Canada and Bali,but not Perth,arguing Australia should open internationally “as one”.

Advertisement

“It’s becoming ever more apparent to everybody across the country that you cannot eliminate COVID. You need to learn to live with it,” he said.

“You could have the ridiculous situation where somebody in New South Wales could travel to Canada before they could go to Cairns or somebody in Victoria could travel to Singapore and Bali before they could go to Perth.”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has urged state and territory leaders to stick to national cabinet’s reopening plan.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has urged state and territory leaders to stick to national cabinet’s reopening plan.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Perth migration lawyer Daniel Estrin said under current processes,the Commonwealth had the authority to grant an international traveller entry to Australia,but WA Police could prevent them from leaving the airport by refusing to issue a G2G entry pass.

“If the Commonwealth reopen the border,it could create a very,very interesting situation,especially with the WA Premier toeing a very hard line,I think you’re going to see quite a lot of conflict,a similar type of conflict like we saw with the Clive Palmer case,” he said.

Mr Estrin said while WA didn’t have the jurisdiction to stop international flights arriving,if it created a bottleneck of stranded travellers at the airport,airlines would likely avoid the state.

“It may well be that the airlines will say well we don’t want people hanging around at the airport,we’re simply not going to fly into Perth anymore,but that would be a commercial decision because obviously federal laws apply for a person that has a travel exemption to come to Australia,so then they can really land at any airport they like,” he said.

Qantas became the first airline to hint at its intention to avoid Perth when it announced plans to reopen some of its international flights in December on Thursday.

Chief executive Alan Joyce said Perth’s direct flight to London could be moved to Darwin if the state’s “conservative border rules” continued.

“People would be unbelievably disappointed if you can go and visit your relatives in London and the UK for Christmas but can’t go and visit your relatives in Perth,” he said.

Loading

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,but we just have to have an alternative plan if it did happen,and this is what we’re putting in place.”

Western Australia has the highest proportion of its residents born overseas compared to any other Australian jurisdiction,at 35 per cent.

Prior to the pandemic,around 1.4 million overseas holidays and business trips were taken by West Australians each year – 415,000 of those being to Bali and one million foreign tourist and 45,000 migrants would enter the state.

License this article

Most Viewed in National

Loading