West Australian Premier Mark McGowan said he was “100 per cent confident” the state’s new border arrangements would be safe, and believed there was an “extremely low” risk of coronavirus entering WA.

WA is preparing to significantly relax its border restrictions at midnight, when new COVID-19 travel rules come into force.

But Mr McGowan has defended his decision not to join other states in reopening borders in time for Christmas, which was announced after a meeting of the National Cabinet today.

This means travellers from New South Wales and Victoria will still have to quarantine for two weeks after arriving in WA.

Mr McGowan said he would continue to follow health advice, which would not necessarily match Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s timetable.

“I don’t believe in an artificial deadline,” he said.

WA’s border changes explainedPremier Mark McGowan is easing WA’s hard border with other states. Here’s what that means for you.Read more

“They’re preparing for a real influx of people they haven’t seen for months,” she said.

Under the controlled border rules, people from all states and territories except Victoria and New South Wales will no longer need a special reason to travel to WA and will not have to quarantine on arrival.

They will still need to make a declaration they are not unwell or symptomatic and have not travelled in New South Wales or Victoria in the past 14 days.

Travellers will also need to register their travel arrangements on the state’s G2G PASS app.

a controlled border with checks in place to keep people safe.

The hard border would also be reimposed if there was any sign the virus was getting out of control again interstate, he said.

“The reason why we are in a position to now look at moving to controlled borders is because right around the country, we have had every state on a rolling five-day average of less than five locally acquired cases,” he said.

“So that is a significant milestone for the country as a whole. In addition, we now have a range of states who have had 28 days since their last locally acquired case.”

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That is the case for Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory.

“Those jurisdictions represent very low risk. That is the reason why we have received the advice from the Chief Health Officer that we are now in a position to move to our new controlled border arrangements,” Mr Cook said.

Catch up on the main COVID-19 news from November 13 with our coronavirus blog.

For the first time ever, the WA branches of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Australian Nurses Federation (ANF) fronted the media together in an alliance, warning the health system would not cope if the disease spreads.

The two unions said there was not sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers, and the existing PPE had not been fit-tested to individuals to ensure they would be kept safe.

ANF state secretary Mark Olsen said health staff were instead being fit-checked, which was insufficient.

He said the results could be disastrous, given 80 percent of health workers who contract COVID-19 were infected in the workplace.

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