So what about other states? Isn’t West Australia more conservative/free than others?
God, no.
Western Australia has a socialist Labor Premier too, Mark McGowan, who is almost as paranoid as Dan Andrews.
It’s just that WA is so far from the rest of the country that it’s been very easy for them to close their border very effectively and keep things out.
They haven’t had many cases and when they have because it’s been such a small outbreak they’ve been able to get back down to zero quickly but if he gets a single case, he shuts down instantly until that happens.
Queensland (Labor under Premier Anna Palaszczuk) and South Australia (conservative Liberal/National under Premier Steven Marshall) being attached to NSW and Victoria in various ways, have had smaller outbreaks, they’ve got under control quick - but they lock down hard until they get back to zero. Palaszczcuk is another paranoid but locking down her borders and small outbreaks have stopped her getting as bad as Andrews.
Tasmania (Liberal under Peter Gutwein) is very small and also has a large moat around it so it’s been very easy to secure its borders and only deal with small outbreaks.
The two state-like Territories - ACT (Labor under Chief Minister Andrew Barr) is surrounded by NSW and literally easily infected by it easily, but has probably mean more reasonable than the other Labor jurisdictions - they lock down fast, but they open up fast too. Northern Territory (Labor under Chief Minister Michael Gunner) - similar to Tasmania. Small population and serious isolation has meant they haven’t had to do much.
Northern
The only two times I’ve seen the faux cops back down there are 1) the truckers blocking the roads, and 2) the male union members who just got ‘police’[sic] to back their cars up out of there quickly. If Aussies still had their gun rights this would have been over before it really started.