CORONAVIRUS —
INTERSTATE BORDER RESTRICTIONS
417. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Premier:
I
have a supplementary question. The Premier mentioned earlier the compassionate
grounds for return. Can the Premier outline any changes to the
compassionate exemptions to be met under the border restrictions introduced
overnight?
Mr M. McGOWAN
replied:
I
announced all that on Friday at a press conference that I think went live, so
the Deputy Leader of the Opposition could
have watched it. We are basically saying that while New South Wales is in the
position of having 50 to 500 cases a day,
it is in a high-risk category. As part of that, applications for exemption for Western
Australians who have been stuck in New South Wales for whatever reason will be
more easily processed by the police if they get vaccinated, have the G2G
Now app and get a PCR test. The police commissioner is putting in place those
rules as we speak.
I just say to people that they need
to fill out the forms properly. We find that people fill out the forms and do
not provide the information that the police
are asking for—for example, the address that they are going to be at,
who else lives at the address and their current medical status. Those
sorts of questions are asked so that applications can be properly assessed, but
people are not providing that information. They then go to a TV station and
say, ''This is terrible; I'm
being denied entry!'' I just say to people that there needs to be a bit
of personal responsibility here. If they want to come back to Western Australia
from a state that has rampant COVID, they need to actually show some personal
responsibility and fill out the forms properly.
I note that the Deputy Leader of
the Opposition has some interest in COVID issues because he has a close
personal relationship with a COVID
conspirator, who attended the member's election night party. Mr Travis
Carter has been running around the
place with the words ''COVID is a lie'' on the back of his motor
vehicle. This photograph of the Deputy
Leader of the Opposition with Mr Travis Carter on election night was posted
online. I think the National Party has shown that it is as bad as the
Liberal Party in having members out there on the extreme fringes once again.