What we have done here is possible in the USA, if say, California decided to close itself off.

I suggest in asking why, perhaps look at the Covid infections and deaths per capita in those other countries, particularly the USA and compare it with ours.

People need to take a chill pill, the vaccination rates are rising, we will emerge from this and all the blather about long term debt, etc. is irrelevant, even with what we’ve spent so far we still have one of the lowest levels of debt vs GDP in the Western world and the long term economic growth after we exit the pandemic will reduce that in percentage terms.

The government should however, provide support to business to get through this period – unfortunately, except for JobKeeper and a few other programs, we have a government at the moment with the wrong ideology to handle this. You know, the guys that endlessly criticised the opposition for what it spent during the GFC which strangely enough saw us as the ONLY Western economy to come through unscathed, but has now spent an enormous amount more and much of it with no strings attached (witness big companies who have kept their job keeper to add to their bottom line, who, because of the nature of their business/sector, such as big retailers, were making a killing during this pandemic anyway).

In a fair world WA would just be cut off and left to stew in its smugness. The fact that the AFL Grand Final was held in Perth was a travesty of monumental proportions.

If you kid acted liked McGowan would you reward him????

Virtually every country in the world has secondary political divisions (states. provinces, whatever). What is so different about Australia that we need to implement internal border controls? The only other country that to my knowledge has done anything like this is Malaysia, in the case of Sabah and Sarawak. Even if there are others, why are we so different from US, DE, MX, CA, FR, etc. that justifies the insane cruelty of internal border controls? The virus has nothing do with state borders. If there’s an outbreak in a given area the necessary controls should be applied to that area in terms of restricting travel within and beyond, but state borders are irrelevant.

Well, then perhaps the NSW Health Minister should actually READ the Constitution o the Commonwealth of Australia – s118 requires all States and the Commonwealth to give full faith and credit to the acts, regulations, laws, judicial proceedings and public records of all other States.

We are a ‘Commonwealth’ heavily based in our Federal/State compact via a written constitution modelled on the US federal system – it’s why our Senate is set up similar to theirs (staggered elections) and why our lower house is called the House of Representatives, etc.

Being a Commonwealth means the Federal Government gets responsibility for specific ‘national’ matters while the States are free to exercise their legislative power within their own borders. Any State can pass regulations for any reason within their ambit – i.e. not denied to them by the constitution in assigning a power to the Commonwealth exclusively – e.g. WA can impose regulations based on its health and state quarantine power within its own borders, but can’t start its own navy or air force or raise its own army. This is how federation works.

The same constitutional provisions that allow the States to do this (in what is, let’s face it, a once in a century occurrence) are the same provisions that mean you don’t have to get a license in every State to drive your car across the country or why your kids can share the driving on L plates on an interstate holiday even though their learners permit was issued in another State – ditto you don’t have to change your license plates at the border.

There’s no need to make this political – but if you want to, the federal LIBERAL government stuffed up in its quarantine power in allowing the Ruby Princess to dock, which sent almost an entire infected ship’s passengers all over the country, ditto vaccines, etc. Victoria has come out of lockdown and opened up several times but only closed when NSW got out of control or there were substantial outbreaks elsewhere.

McGowan, while we may think he takes it too far, just fought an election on his Covid response and closed borders and if I remember correctly he fell just short of a majority in the State Upper House and won something like 52 of the 59 seats in the lower house, leaving 2 Liberals and 3 Nationals and making the Nationals the opposition.

Isn’t that what Premiers of whatever color do ? What works politically. The irony is that if Gladys in particular had managed to achieve what Mark and Anastacia have, then the borders would not be so “hard”!!

s92 Provides that trade, commerce and intercourse between the states, whether by means of internal carriage or via sea, shall be absolutely free….

BUT…….

s118 requires that all states and the commonwealth must give full faith and credit to the acts, regulations, laws, judicial proceedings and public records of other states.

Those are not the exact wording(s), however, the fact is s92 is really about trade and commerce essentially and while there is some basis for what you say, s118 (commonly called the ‘full faith and credit clause’ as an essentially identical clause appears in the US Constitution, from which ours was substantially modelled) means that if an individual State makes a law based on health or quarantine regulations, referring to its internal borders (i.e. the jurisdiction over which it has power to legislate/govern) then every other State and the Commonwealth must recognise that.

This clause is the reason why if you go away on a family holiday, your child can continue to drive supervised by you on a learner’s permit from your home state, in another state and indeed, it’s why we can drive across the country, because the ‘other’ State(s) must recognise your registration, insurance and licences.