ScoMo’s huge call about WA border

WA was originally slated to reopen its border to other states on February 5, but last month Mr McGowan announced that would be pushed back due to the Omicron surge in the eastern states.

The delay has been widely panned.

But on Thursday, Mr Morrison conceded the WA Premier had done right by his state, saying Omicron was a “very different virus” and had changed the goalposts.

“The things we were doing before, don’t work the same way under the Omicron virus,” Mr Morrison said.

“As a result, you’ve got to reset, and you’ve got to rethink the things you were doing in the eastern states.

“We’ve had to change things over the summer, it’s had significant impacts but Omicron brought that about. I think that’s the big lesson from the eastern states to the west, when it inevitably moves – as the Premier has said – into the Omicron stage, that the lessons from the east coast be applied there and that when the health system he believes is ready to go, I’m sure he’ll take the next step.”

When asked when he thought was the right time for WA to rejoin the rest of the country, Mr Morrison said he trusted Mr McGowan and his team to make the right decision.

“We’ve seen in the West they want (to travel unencumbered for their work or to see family or holiday), but they want to do it safely too,” Mr Morrison said.

“That’s the Premier’s call, and he has to make that decision based on what he thinks his health system is ready to absorb.”

Zeroing in on the health systems in eastern states, and the high death rates being recorded every daily, Mr Morrison was asked whether the level of death was “acceptable” to him.

“None of these deaths, at the end of the day whether here in Australia or around the world (are acceptable),” he said.

“This is the virus doing this, and it’s happening all around the world. And Australia has one of the lowest death rates from Covid anywhere in the world.

“And yes, every single one of these deaths is heartbreaking for those families, but equally every life we have saved is a great blessing.”

Earlier, chief medical officer Paul Kelly told a press conference that data showed just 0.1 per cent of Omicron-positive cases died from the virus.

Mr Morrison said it was a sign of how “different” Omicron was to previous iterations of the virus.

“It behaves differently. And that’s why when Western Australia, and it will get there at some point, and (Mr McGowan and I) both understand that, that looking at how you manage that when it’s there is very different to what it was with Delta,” Mr Morrison said.

“That’s the lesson from the East Coast.”

Originally published as Scott Morrison’s huge call on West Australian border