FIFO worker’s WA border frustration

WEST Australian Premier Mark McGowan’s decision to keep his state’s hard border in place indefinitely has been described as “very frustrating” by a Tasmanian fly-in, fly-out worker.

WA was to open up to the rest of the country on February 5, but on Thursday Mr McGowan delayed that, as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 continued to wreak havoc across Australia.

The state recorded five new Covid cases to 8pm on Wednesday, and there were 79 active Covid cases there.

FIFO worker Grant Viney, who works at the Jundee Gold Mine in WA’s Northern Goldfields region, said his work status was up in the air as a result of Mr McGowan’s decision.

“It’s very frustrating,” he said. “I’m fortunate enough to work for a company that has other mine sites in Australia to go to. But there’s other people that don’t.”

Mr Viney, who also works as a freelance photographer, was stranded in WA for eight months at the start of the pandemic and was unable to see his family back home in Tasmania.

“To me, it just seems more political now, what (Mr McGowan) is doing,” he said.

Mr McGowan said on Thursday that he wanted to see the third dose vaccination rate “at least” above 80 per cent and “perhaps 90 per cent” before the state opened its border again.

“But what we are going to do is review the situation over February and watch what is occurring over east and work out what the best approach is for Western Australia,” he said.

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein said the decision was “a matter for the WA Premier” but criticised the mainland state’s vaccination rates.

“To be honest, I think it’s a failure of vaccination,” he said.

“Where WA is today is where we were, broadly speaking, at the end of November-early December.

“They are at about 88 per cent, I think, double-vaccinated in terms of over-12s.

“So I think you can point very clearly to that as being a major problem.”