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The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, has accused the Morrison government of being on a “mission” to bring coronavirus into the state as the federal treasurer doubled down on warnings state leaders should not expect financial assistance if they failed to deliver the national reopening plan.
McGowan responded furiously on Wednesday to a suggestion from the federal attorney general, Michaelia Cash, that the legal scope for the premiers to keep their borders closed would decrease once local vaccination rates increased.
“I don’t know why the federal government is doing this ... what’s gotten into them? We went to the high court last year, we had to defeat Clive Palmer,” McGowan told reporters in Perth.
The premier said the Morrison government had supported Palmer during his high court battle to reopen the WA border until “they withdrew halfway through”. “They tried to get us to withdraw the case, they told me we’d lose, and they were wrong,” the McGowan said.
Cash – a cabinet minister from WA – later clarified the commonwealth was not planning any legal challenges to WA’s border restrictions and said the government would not support any renewed effort by Palmer to contest the closure.
But McGowan remained on the offensive. “Why are they on this mission to bring Covid into Western Australia, to infect our public? To ensure we shut down parts of the economy? That we lose jobs? That people get sick and some people die? Haven’t they seen what’s happening in New South Wales?”
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, acknowledged on Wednesday that case numbers in his state would continue to rise despite aggressive suppression efforts.
While the prime minister, Scott Morrison, had moved on Tuesday to lower the temperature of a rolling conflict between leaders about whether it was safe to ease restrictions once vaccination rates for adults hit 70%, his treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, on Wednesday demanded leaders stick to the four-phase reopening plan.
Frydenberg characterised Wednesday’s acknowledgement from the Victorian government that elimination was no longer possible in the state as a “positive step to ease the restrictions” once the 70% and 80% vaccination targets set out in the reopening plan are met.
“It is a reality that we have to live with the virus,” the treasurer told reporters in Canberra. “We can’t eliminate it. Australia should open up as one ... and that is why it is really important, whether you are in Western Australia, whether you are in Queensland, whether you are in the southern states, you should follow the plan.”
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During an interview with the ABC later on Wednesday afternoon, Frydenberg declared there should be “no expectations on behalf of the premiers and chief ministers that the commonwealth will continue the scale of economic support that we currently have in place” if they continued to impose lockdowns.
On Tuesday, the prime minister had struck a conciliatory tone, acknowledging that states were “starting from different places” – meaning some states were currently Covid-free while NSW, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory were battling significant Delta outbreaks.
Morrison said there wasn’t a common Delta experience across the country “but the place we’re heading to is the same”.
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But on Wednesday, the federal home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, echoed Frydenberg’s more assertive tone. Andrews, a cabinet minister from Queensland, told reporters the government was “of the view that Queensland should be open”.
Queensland is currently Covid-free. The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said on Wednesday she wanted more advice from the Doherty Institute – the organisation that has conducted the epidemiological modelling that underpins the national reopening plan – about the impact of easing restrictions on unvaccinated children.
But in Canberra, Andrews accused Palaszczuk of stalling. “The Queensland premier is quite clearly doubling down on her ‘let’s keep Queensland closed’ and the federal government is of the view that Queensland should be open”.
McGowan said he would open his border to the eastern states once WA gets “to a high enough vaccination rate that we can bring down the border with infected states”. But he warned “that’s a way away”.
The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has demanded that her state and territory counterparts stick to the reopening plan. She continued those calls on Wednesday as case numbers in the state continued to rise.
Berejiklian told reporters NSW was on track to reopen hospitality and service businesses by the middle of October, and said vaccinated international travellers could return to Australia for Christmas and quarantine at home.
But the premier declined to share advice from NSW Health about when the outbreak in Sydney would peak, saying the advice changed on a daily basis.
The roiling came as NSW recorded 1,116 Covid cases and four deaths on Wednesday. Victoria recorded 120 new infections and the ACT 23. South Australian authorities also updated the exposure site list for the state after confirming a fifth Covid-positive truck driver had passed through the state over the past six days.
National cabinet will meet on Friday.