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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 84 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 23 February 2022 by Dr D.J. Honey

Parliament: 41 Session: 1

CORONAVIRUS — INTERNATIONAL TRAVELLERS

84. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Premier:

Given that under the Premier's newly announced WA safe transition plan an unvaccinated Western Australian can return to Western Australia from overseas as long as they complete hotel quarantine and have commonwealth approval and a registered G2G PASS, can the Premier explain why, if the same unvaccinated Western Australian returned from interstate, they could not enter our state without a vaccination exemption?

Mr M. McGOWAN replied:

I will explain something to the Leader of the Liberal Party that he may not be aware of; that is, the state does not control our international borders. That might be a revelation to the Leader of the Liberal Party, but they are under the control of the commonwealth government, and the commonwealth government has a policy of allowing unvaccinated people to come home from overseas, subject to quarantine. That is a matter that the commonwealth controls. We have a very strong policy about people getting vaccinated, including some mandates in certain parts of the workforce and also some proof of vaccination requirements for people to do certain things, including to travel into the state from other states. As we know, we do have control over that because the High Court ruled that the state can control that. That is the difference, Leader of the Liberal Party. I despair for the Liberal Party, because he does not understand that.