Qantas chair Richard Goyder calls for WA border road map following Victoria’s zero coronavirus cases

Qantas chairman Richard Goyder has called for a road map to lifting all interstate borders after zero coronavirus cases were recorded in Victoria today. With 18,000 employees waiting to return to their airline careers, Mr Goyder has used his appearance on The West Live to urge the WA Government to get moving on creating a plan for reopening. Pressure is mounting on Premier Mark McGowan to lift the State’s hard border after every other jurisdiction agreed to National Cabinet’s plan on Friday to reopen ahead of Christmas. “It’s so tough. We’re burning around $40 million of cash a week so you don’t need to multiple that by too many weeks to find that that has an impact on the business,” he told podcast host Jenna Clarke. “That’s why we really do want to see a road map for opening interstate borders, so that we can get our people back to work and importantly get people connected again. “We’re flying at around 20 per cent of our domestic capacity at the moment. “It’s tough because at the moment we’ve got 18,000 employees stood down and with no work. “It’s tough for those people and we’re doing better than almost every airline in the world.” His comments on the podcast come after he slammed WA’s stance on its hard border at the airline’s AGM in Sydney on Friday morning, while revealing a $100 million hit to first-quarter earnings. Mr Goyder told shareholders that as virus numbers in Victoria come under control and NSW shows how small clusters can be managed successfully, there was “frustrating inertia” around WA and Queensland’s hard borders. His border concerns come as The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA chief executive officer Paul Everingham told Clarke the mining sector was already in discussions with the State’s health and transport departments around forging new interstate travel arrangements. He said many interstate FIFO workers had been stuck in WA since early March and were working “in partnership with the State Government” to assist them. “We’ve been working with the Health Department now around some travel protocols,” he said. “We know the State’s got the interests of Western Australia at heart and we want to work with them. We’ve been working in partnership with the State Government for some time now around certainty — particularity for interstate FIFO workers. “A lot of them have been away from home for a long time. They’ve had to live in more strenuous circumstances and they’re the ones we need to be congratulating and thanking. “We know they’re doing things on a health and safety basis. That’s what we’re putting first. We don’t think it should be a partisan or political matter. “We’re working collaboratively behind the scenes with the Health Department and the Transport Department and others around making that happen.” Mr Goyder also welcomed the no new cases and no further deaths in Victoria today — the first time since early June. Victoria’s positive figures have increased expectations Daniel Andrews will announce the lifting of more restrictions, which was expected but delayed across the weekend. “Hopefully, we’re very shortly in a situation where any outbreaks are contained,” he said. “We had our first international flight last week, which went from Perth to London and back to Darwin, which was to bring 160-170 Australians back home. That was our first international flight in months.”