Premier Mark McGowan has copped some heavy criticism from eastern state commentators over his handling of the New South Wales hard border.

WA slammed the border shut to the state over the weekend after a cluster of cases in Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

On Saturday Premier Mark McGowan criticized the New South Wales government for their handling of the COVID cluster.

“This is causing grief all over Australia, so they need to kill the virus in Sydney and in New South Wales,” the Premier said.

“They seem to be engaging in a form of whack a mole, they tried to step on a gym here or a restaurant there, rather than play whack a mole, they need to kill all the moles.”

The comments got 2GB Sydney summer Breakfast host Chris Smith fired up.

“How dumb is this Mark McGowan? how out of whack and disproportionate are these measures?” Smith said.

“What a deranged character he is, he obviously thinks you’ve got to kill everything, so stop everything, that’s what he did, he shut the border hard in the greatest elimination strategy of any leader in any jurisdiction in the entire world.”

The Premier also copped criticism from The Australian newspaper, who accused the Premier of distastefully “hectoring and lecturing” West Australians.

The national newspaper said the Premier has a “narrow approach” on borders, and accused The West Australian newspaper of “pandering to the Premier” with banner headlines.

6PR’s Gary Adshead raised questions about the Premier’s approach and accused him of boasting about WA’s success.

“Is a deadly virus really a competition, should anyone be gloating about being better than anyone else, when we are supposedly all in this together,” Adshead said.

“It’s pretty obvious that all the sentiment of being one nation working together to beat this debilitating and destructive disease is nothing more than rhetoric now.

“Mark McGowan is undeniably cashing in on our success, and using inflammatory language to whip up local patriotism, many people over east do resent that.”

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(Photo: Matt Jelonek/ Getty Images.)