Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Attorney-General (Senator Cash) to a question without notice she asked today relating to COVID-19 and Western Australia.

Yesterday and today in the chamber we have heard Attorney-General Senator Cash, herself a Western Australian, say that the legal pathways that led to the High Court determining that it was reasonable for WA to have closed its borders to stop the spread of COVID-19 may have a different outcome should those same policies be tested again. 'Things have changed,' Senator Cash said, and 'When is Mark McGowan going to open Western Australia up to the rest of the country?' I am exceedingly alarmed at these remarks. Premier McGowan put it best when he said, 'The Morrison government went through the Clive Palmer experience last year and now they want to do exactly the same thing again.' What kind of message is Senator Cash trying to send to Western Australians? Senator Cash must take us for mugs.

Of course Western Australia can't live in a bubble forever. But to open up at 80 per cent and invite the virus in when this government has not provided enough vaccines for the other 20 per cent of Western Australians who might want to be vaccinated to get vaccinated is a ridiculous proposition. So if Mark McGowan rightly says, 'I'm not going to open up the borders automatically at 80 per cent,' I'm very grateful and thankful for him saying that. In fact, he fought in the negotiations in the national cabinet to ensure that Western Australia, as part of agreeing to the plan, is able to keep its border protection system in place.

It is a ridiculous notion that Western Australia should just allow COVID into the state when there are people who want to be vaccinated who will not be vaccinated by that point in time, including very vulnerable members of the community—older people, First Nations Australian and, indeed, children—due to this government's failure to roll out the vaccine and secure enough supply. But this government is instead focused on attacking premiers and chief ministers and drawing up legal schemes to force the pandemic into places where it doesn't exist already.

For the Attorney-General, the chief law officer in this country, to be openly advocating for future challenges to Western Australia's border closures is absolutely farcical. The Morrison government has spent more than a million dollars supporting Clive Palmer's failed High Court challenge. It failed, and I call on the government to move on. Yet we've heard the Attorney-General saying out of one side of her mouth that the government won't support a challenge led by Clive Palmer but, on the other hand, essentially saying that the laws are now ripe for challenging. Why won't the Attorney-General pay money to support Mark McGowan and the state government against a future High Court challenge if business wants to challenge those laws? Essentially, again, the Attorney-General is siding against the state of Western Australia.