West Australians will not accept Scott Morrison’s belated attempt to wash his hands of his Government’s irresponsible support for Clive Palmer’s legal challenge to the state’s interstate border closure.
 
This backdown has come far too late and the damage has already been done.
 
Labor repeatedly called on the Morrison Government to withdraw from the case before hearings began last Monday.
 
Instead, the Commonwealth has just spent days in the Federal Court, at taxpayers’ expense, fighting against the best interests of the people of Western Australia.
 
During those hearings the Government called witnesses and argued in support of Mr Palmer’s case, which will be now decided on by the High Court.
 
Mr Morrison also confidently predicted – as the case was being heard – that the constitutional challenge would succeed.
 
Attorney-General Christian Porter even had the audacity to argue that the Commonwealth had joined the case simply to assist the court, and that it was not taking sides.
 
That has now been exposed as a lie.
 
Now, only after the proceedings have finished, Mr Morrison and Mr Porter claim they have withdrawn their support.
 
This is a humiliating backdown by a Government that showed it was fully prepared to put the lives of West Australians at risk.
 
The people of WA will not forget this.