Western Australia’s hard border and strong COVID-19 response has buttressed the local economy to post the strongest economic growth of any State in 2019-20.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released today show Western Australia’s domestic economy was the only State to experience growth for the 2019-20 year, growing 1.1 per cent.
Today’s figures also show WA confronted the COVID-19 pandemic from a position of strength, with growth in the State’s domestic economy in 2019-20 the strongest result in seven years.
This growth in the midst of a pandemic was underpinned by strong business investment, which grew by 9.3 per cent, in part driven by the mining sector which was able to continue operating throughout the pandemic. Economic activity was also supported by government support and stimulus measures.
The economic results released today demonstrate the importance of WA’s hard border closure for protecting the health of Western Australians and the health of the local economy.
States with open borders faired significantly worse than those with closed borders in the June quarter, with New South Wales and Victoria both contracting by around 8.5 per cent. This compares to a six per cent contraction in State Final Demand for WA in the June quarter.
The McGowan Government continues to implement its $5.5 billion Recovery Plan to drive WA’s economic and social recovery across different sectors throughout the whole State, to ensure we can recover, stronger than ever.
As stated by Treasurer Ben Wyatt:
“The economic impact of COVID-19 is certainly the most significant in our lifetimes. However, today’s economic figures show our proactive economic response is protecting our economy.
“Our hard border has allowed us to open up our domestic economy sooner, to restore confidence and allow businesses to restart and Western Australians to get back to work.
“As other States have discovered, and today’s results highlight, taking a more reactive approach to suppress outbreaks as they emerge, is incredibly risky not only to public health but the economy.
“Constantly changing the rules to deal with outbreaks is bad for business confidence and, in turn bad, for the economy as we have seen in States with open borders.
“The McGowan Government is taking action with its $5.5 billion Recovery Plan to return our economy to its pre-COVID growth trajectory as quickly as possible, to support WA businesses and get Western Australians back to work.
“WA confronted the COVID-19 challenge from a position of strength having turned around the massive economic contractions under the Liberal National Government, which remain the biggest annual falls on record.”
