Liza Harvey has been unequivocal in stating WA's border should remain closed.

"The Liberal Party supports strong borders that protect the health of West Australians," the Opposition Leader wrote in a Facebook post this week.

The only problem is, Ms Harvey had previously and repeatedly been just as unequivocal that the border should open as a matter of urgency.

"There doesn't appear to be a valid reason to keep the interstate borders closed," the WA Liberal leader said on May 19.

Ms Harvey doubled down on that stance, repeatedly urging WA to open up at first calling for domestic travel restrictions to go entirely, before instead suggesting a travel bubble with South Australia and the Northern Territory.

"Our family businesses are going to the wall because of his hard border stance and theres clearly no evidence that it is actually medically required at this point," she said on June 16.

Ms Harvey faced ferocious public criticism for that stance, which also earned the deep frustration of many of her parliamentary Liberal colleagues perplexed at why their party had taken such an unpopular stance.

But she was far from the only Liberal to urge WA to open up.

"The Morrison Government's view on border closures is clear, that borders should be open," Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter said in June.

The Commonwealth went as far as to intervene in Clive Palmer's High Court challenge, supporting the mining billionaire's legal demand that WA welcome back visitors from around the country.

"There is no doubt that those sort of borders do harm the economy, they do harm jobs and it is important that we get those removed as soon as possible," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in May.

The Federal Government finally backed down a week ago, withdrawing support for Mr Palmer's challenge after the dramatic escalation in Victoria's virus situation.

Few would dispute their stance on the court challenge had become unsustainable, given case numbers had reached such concerning levels in Melbourne and public support of the border closure was so strong in WA.

Almost certainly, the situation made the backdowns by both the State and Federal Liberals inevitable.

But now the key question is whether the change of course came too late for the Liberals to avoid a severe public backlash.

Ms Harvey insists it is the big shift in circumstances, rather than public sentiment, that prompted her change of heart on the border.

"The community expect leaders to respond when circumstances change," she said this week.

"If you have a look around the country and around the world, leaders in every jurisdiction have had to change their position as the environment around COVID-19 changes."

But, as State Parliament returns this week, Ms Harvey is likely to face awkward questions about what would have transpired in WA had she got her wish in May or June.

So far, only Victoria has experienced anything like the rapid growth in cases that has so alarmed health officials across Australia.

But other states which even partially opened their borders have had serious headaches.

South Australia had to re-impose some restrictions this week after cases popped up, Queensland health officials were left scrambling after three COVID-19 positive people snuck back in to the state, and New South Wales for so long an open border advocate had to slam the door on Victorians, after weeks of clusters popping up all over its territory.

WA would likely have had every possibility of suffering the same fate had its border rules been relaxed.

Instead, West Australians are continuing to live with freedoms currently unparalleled around the country.

For all its popularity, WA's hard border closure is neither foolproof nor perfect.

Freight movement, such as truck drivers, continues to present an outbreak risk, as does the hotel quarantine system just as Victoria showed.

While the virus has been eliminated from the WA community, there are no guarantees that is a permanent situation.

And COVID-19 has sent repeated signals around the world that it is going nowhere leaving it increasingly unfeasible for WA to spend the whole pandemic inside its cocoon.

Families are separated and West Australians stranded, while businesses that rely on interstate travel are suffering greatly.

But, by any measure, the border closure is staggeringly popular within WA at the moment.

So, too, is the man seen as its primary advocate and defender Premier Mark McGowan.

With all that writing on the wall, both state and federal Liberals have backed away from their efforts to bring down WA's wall.

But with an already-daunting state election just seven months away, Liberals have good reason to be nervous about whether voters will forgive or forget the stance they took about the hard border.

And Labor will have plenty of campaign fodder for the next federal election albeit one likely to be much further away which is likely to leave senior WA Liberals facing repeated questions about why they fought for so long to bring down the border.

See the rest here:

WA voters may not forgive and forget the Liberals' coronavirus border stance in time - ABC News