Liberals would be better off keeping Morrison out of WA. Whilst people (myself included) don't agree with McGowan's backflip I put ultimate blame on our fracturing as a nation on the guy that's meant to be in charge of the whole thing. Where has Morrison been over this decision? I haven't heard a peep from him and if he has opened his mouth no one is really listening as his credibility is now shot.

Whilst state governments have been doing their own thing the last two years and a lot have excused the PM's lack of action on an inability to control them, a good federal government with strong and effective leadership and good forward planning could've pulled the nation in one direction. As Howard did over the 1996 gun laws. McGowan's failure of leadership is only second to Morrison. That's what happens when the failed marketer sacked by John Howard who got pre selection and then party leader through some dubious actions or being the last man standing. You get all spin no substance, and I think many have seen through him for a while now.

Small problem of a High Court case that gifted Mc Gowan all his power.

Morrison should have grabbed the bulls by the horns from day 1 that might have worked as Mc Gowan didn't want locked borders until he realised it was popular. However even doing that was a grey area in terms of who was responsible for what.

There is only one reason for Morrison's absence in the current debate: the looming Federal election. He knows darned well that McGowan still enjoys a huge amount of support. If Morrison pushes too hard the LNP will lose more votes in several marginal seats that could make or break the next election. He saw the backlash that occurred in WA when the Commonwealth Government supported Palmer's High Court challenge. The Commonwealth subsequently withdrew and since then Morrison has largely kept quiet about WA and McGowan.

Very well said.

I guess maybe an easy answer to Sco Mo absence is accountability, secretly he most likely likes that the premiers are controlling the health orders. Imagine each way Albo now if Sco Mo was responsible he would be saying the Libs are responsible for every death and every other problem associated with this mess.

This is what I am hearing from friends in SA and QLD. They wish their premiers had waited a bit longer too.
The worry isn't so much having to deal with the virus as 14 days of house arrest for a triple vaxxed negative testing healthy individual who has been unlucky enough to become a "close contact".
The current iso requirements would have meant we would be without healthcare workers and all industries grinding to a halt within a week or two of throwing open the borders. No jobkeeper, cashflow boost etc this time.
McGowan's last "lockdown grant" was only given to a very very small selection of businesses affected - he lost a massive amount of support when that promise turned out to be an email to the vast majority saying "You are not eligable for this grant".
If you are going to let it rip then why bother with iso?
Sure McGowan has lost a lot of support, but from what I hear the majority of people are very relieved he hasn't just gone from hard border to no border overnight.

If SCOMO wins the election, I think the feds will up the pressure somehow on McGowan and the border wouldn’t remain closed much longer after the election win (if he wins)

May 14 or 21 will be the most likely dates for the next election. However it looks as if WA will be open well before then. If the current low rate of spread around the city doesn't exponentially grow to the point where the border becomes redundant, then there is a narrow window for reopening laid out in the following article below:

COVID WA: Why Mark McGowan may have to open border sooner

“This [booster coverage] is expected to have a significant impact on [Omicron] modelling up to the end of March,” he said.

In his written advice to push back the February 5 reopening date, Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson gave the clearest indication yet WA would reconnect with the world in the autumn.

He said the added protection of booster shots would start to wane from the end of March, particularly among the elderly and healthcare workers who were the first to get a third dose.

He told the Premier that any decision on a new opening date should consider the potential for “twin outbreaks” if the COVID peak or post-peak period was expected to fall in the winter flu season.

WA Health had planned for the peak to be about two months after February 5, with hospital occupancy typically best in February, March and April.

The PCR testing regime was expected to collapse under the demand caused by the fast-spreading variant, meaning rapid antigen tests would be crucial. By February 27, just over 25 million were expected to be available and a further 37.75 million by late March.

So basically elderly and healthcare workers have been boosted over the last month. The peak of booster protection starts to wane from late March. Meaning you would want maximum protection around this time. You also don't want too much occupancy in winter, with a dual viral spread happening simultaneously. More RATs will be available then too. So if you open at the start of March the peak should be late March when the protection is highest. Then through April the cases reduce and a few weeks later hospitalisations too, so by the start of winter Covid won't be as much of an issue and then ready for influenza and RSV.

Now if that reopening was delayed as you suggested til after the mid May election the wave would be right through winter, with much less effectiveness of boosters in the elderly and simultaneous Covid and Flu outbreaks. That would be a bit of a disaster in the health system and obviously bad PR so even McGowan would want to avoid this.

My bet would be a early to mid March reopening date. Although he may have gotten some kudos for delaying the date what I think has screwed him is the lack of an alternative. Even the previously cautious AMA has urged him to quickly set a new date.

He doesn’t act on health advice, he hides behind it. I remember watching the debate between Zak and Mark pre-election and when asked by a reporter “will you open the border after the vaccine rollout?” his answer was “if the health advice says so”. That’s when I knew it’s not his intention to open until covid magically ceases to exist. His backflip just proves that.

But in SA and QLD how much of that public concern comes from a failure of leadership?

QLD has played politics with the border throughout the pandemic (QLD hospitals for Queenslanders). She’s also played on the “southerner” sentiment. So it’s a natural reaction for people to be apprehensive when “those people” are allowed back in.

SA has a clear bias towards extremely cautious rules. “Don’t touch the ball at the AFL” comes to mind! Lockdown over the pizza shop anyone?

Tasmania has similar problems with onerous rules but no one cares about Tasmania so it doesn’t get mentioned.

What I mean by failure of leadership is our various Premiers mostly failing to lead from the front and guide people towards opening and rising cases. They needed to make a rational argument why we should open AND then drop the obsession with case numbers and isolation rules.

The fact case numbers are still widely reported shows we are focusing on the wrong thing. The isolation rules also show we aren’t focusing on the right thing. The whole idea of a close contact shouldn’t even exist anymore. The only rules should be for people with actual symptoms, stay home. Everyone else should be allowed to continue to work until they actually get sick.

Because at the end of the day, the risk of serious illness or death does NOT exist anymore. The statistics for death/ICU are getting close to influenza. Which is to be expected after we did what we were told and got vaccinated. Plus Omicron is a milder version than Delta.

Getting close to what we had with influenza, and despite those numbers of deaths, there was not even a whisper of upcoming masks lockdowns or border closures. It would have taken a lot more influenza deaths before any of those measures would have been introduced. What’s the difference now? The word ‘covid’ splashed on all media headlines, combined with the number of stoopid people in Australia and we have the resultant fear.

Here's the advice given to McGowan by the WA Chief Health Officer. Most of it has been ignored by the media.

CONTROLLED BORDER TRANSITION ARRANGEMENTS

Seems that link doesn't exist anymore. LOL

My apologies. The link still worked earlier this afternoon, but has since been taken down. It was published yesterday afternoon as part of an article by WA Today:

Benefits of COVID-19 booster shots in WA would start to wane after March: Chief Health Officer

Edit: They changed the link. The advice can now be viewed here:

CONTROLLED BORDER TRANSITION ARRANGEMENTS

Very nice health advice to print such nice formal letters lol, pity the WA health system is still a cesspit of disgrace! With all due respect I lived in Perth 25 years ago and the health system was absolute disaster back then, just shows you can’t fix stupid. And Stupid tends to be at a high level in remote cities. The Feds should move to remove them from Australia and invade and destroy them one day later, best outcome for all.😂

So given all this, if they don’t announce a “firm” date to open around late February/March then when?

If there’s no community transmission then either (assuming they get the current cases under control), it’ll be an easy excuse to hold off longer.

So if not March, then they delay again significantly to avoid the winter surge of other illnesses.

So I see it as either March or January/February 2023.

Who knows? One of the CHO's recommendations was "develop a recommended case number threshold for opening the international and interstate borders, if outbreaks occur prior to the planned opening date". If the current outbreak keeps growing, then McGowan's hand might be forced.

Oh? You mean during the government of Richard Court? (1993 - 2001) and John Howard (1996 until he became the only Australian Prime Minister to lose his seat while in office)

If SCOMO had any balls, he would drop the arrival caps into WA. As far as I’m aware, this falls under federal jurisdiction, but the current 250 arrivals per week was made on request by the WA state government. McGowan would then have no choice but to home quarantine all the arrivals. At least get Australian’s home. But no, SCOMO needs to look after the needs of his party’s re-election before the needs of Australians stranded abroad.

Which as I believe Dr Dre said, might actually be the intention.

If it does get away from him and cases rise, he can argue that he “did everything to save WA residents” but the virus got through anyway due to (probably) “those pesky eastern states ruining our lives”.

He’ll get to save face vs opening up and. HIM being the reason the virus is there.