Western Australians could be forgiven for thinking they will live in a perpetual state of emergency following yesterday’s announcement the McGowan government would introduce a law enabling ongoing COVID-19 pandemic measures to be imposed until 2023.

One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson, campaigning in Western Australia for the first time since before the pandemic, said the reluctance of the McGowan government to relinquish command and control of the state was alarming.

“This has been a defining feature of Labor state and territory governments during the pandemic – exercising extraordinary powers of control and introducing laws enabling this power to be retained indefinitely,” Senator Hanson said.

“When will power be returned to the people of Western Australia, with whom it belongs?”

Senator Hanson said Western Australia’s response to COVID-19 would necessarily come under close scrutiny in a Royal Commission into the management of the pandemic by Australian governments.

“We will demand the incoming Federal government begin a Royal Commission as soon as possible,” she said. “We need a Royal Commission not to find scapegoats or place blame – accountability rests with the elected leaders of governments as it always should in a representative democracy – but to learn what worked well and what didn’t so we’re better prepared for the next pandemic.

“We need a Royal Commission because it will have the necessary coercive powers to compel the health advice our governments relied upon to justify implementing pandemic measures like lockdowns and vaccine mandates which destroyed families, jobs and businesses across the country. Much of this advice has been hidden. We need a Royal Commission because this inquiry must be in full public view.

“Premier McGowan continues to praise his government’s COVID-19 response despite trampling on individual rights and freedoms, so he should have absolutely no problem with cooperating in a Royal Commission and revealing all the advice he used to justify turning Western Australia into a hermit kingdom.”

Photo Credit: PerthNow