CORONAVIRUS — INTERSTATE BORDER
RESTRICTIONS
746. Mr Z.R.F. KIRKUP to the Premier:
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
Mr F.M. Logan: Here he is—Che
Guevara!
Mr Z.R.F. KIRKUP: That might
be one of the more kinder things that have been said in here about me, but nonetheless!
The SPEAKER: Minister for
Emergency Services, I call you to order for the first time. Just remember, we
are in Parliament and we have young children up the back listening to some of
this behaviour. I hope it stops pretty soon.
Mr Z.R.F. KIRKUP: Not soon
enough, Mr Speaker.
Is the Premier's position
that if there is no community spread in the eastern states for 28 days, he will
look to have the border removed, and is that still his position?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
That
is the advice provided by the Chief Health Officer. For some reason, and I do
not understand the strategy, the state opposition and the Liberal Party
keep trying to undermine the efforts that we have gone to to keep Western Australia
safe. They keep trying to undermine that. They do not seem to have a strategy
committee. They do not seem to think about the questions that they ask. We
scratch our heads every day about their strategy. No wonder Joe Spagnolo—that
very wise and sage political commentator—said that it is the worst opposition
he has seen in 15 years! I have seen some pretty bad oppositions over that
period. That is what Joe had to say. I do not understand its strategy and why
it wants to undermine all that has been achieved in Western Australia.
We have had no community cases now
for 163 days. The biggest threat to the state is the virus coming in from
overseas or interstate. If the virus comes into the state, as we have seen in
other countries around the world or other states,
the health impacts will be bad and the economic impacts will be dire.
Therefore, the model we have established in Western Australia, which is a very open economy—the most open
economy within the country; a modern trading economy internationally, but we have a border in place to keep ourselves
safe—has worked. It has saved the lives of countless older Western Australians and people who
are immunocompromised across the state. It has worked. There are threats
to it. We know that Clive Palmer went to the High Court and we are still
battling him in the High Court. He does numerous things to undermine Western Australia.
His efforts were supported by the Liberal Party—an undeniable fact. Why
did the Liberal Party do it? Probably because its fervent hope is that he will
spend millions of dollars in the state election campaign to try to bring the
state government down. He has already spent hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, on a campaign against me personally and the government. The Liberal
Party fervently hopes it will secure support from Clive Palmer and, therefore,
the Liberal Party will be right in his pocket the whole way along. The way the
Liberal Party acts in this state is disgusting and disgraceful.