The Premier said the expected influx was concerning, given the pressure it would put on WA’s hotel quarantine system.
About 3,000 Australian tourists granted “emergency visas” by Bali earlier this year were told by the Indonesian Government last month they would need to leave the island by September 10.
Most of the Australian travellers were on temporary visas before COVID-19 hit, and were living and working in Bali.
The Indonesian Government granted emergency visas at the start of the pandemic but announced in July all temporary visas would expire by September 10.
Mark McGowan this week revealed the potential influx of tourists in coming weeks was an ongoing concern.
“We’ll obviously have to follow up urgently,” he said.
“Obviously we have to cope with large numbers of people still coming into the country. At any given point in time, we have between 1,200 and 1,500 people in quarantine hotels.
“What we don’t want to have happen is problems in running those as they’ve had in Victoria and that’s really a numbers game.”
Bali travellers will have to pay for their stay in hotel quarantine
Legislation that would force return travellers to pay for their quarantine is expected to pass parliament this week and will be retrospective to July 17.
“People have now had six months to come home,” Mr McGowan said.
“There’s a limited set of exemptions in hardship cases. We expect there’ll be about 10 per cent of people eligible for that. But other than that, people will be paying.”
Bali travellers need to start planning how they will get home.
The Government last month put in place flight caps, with WA now only receiving 525 people per week – meaning travel into Perth is quite limited at the moment, making travel plans homes a bit more complicated than usual.
This is second only to Sydney, which is receiving up to 350 people a day.
Mr McGowan said using Rottnest Island as a “fall back option” should there be too many return travellers was still considered an option.
Australia is currently the only democratic country that is also forcing its citizens to seek exceptions to leave and travel overseas.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said this was partly because most people leaving would eventually have to come back, and partly because States had requested fewer return travellers to arrive at once.
Further Perth COVID-19 news on SoPerth.com.au.
