Western Australia premier Mark McGowan is warned his Covid-19 border closure ...

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Ultra-cautious state premiers face the prospect of their border closures being ruled illegal after 80 per cent of Australians are vaccinated.

Hardline WA premier Mark McGowan has vowed to keep his border ban in place to stop Covid-19 entering his state even after the vaccination thresholds which allow restrictions to be relaxed under the national plan are met.

In November mining billionaire Clive Palmer claimed WA's border closure was unconstitutional and challenged it in the High Court.

But judges ruled it was legal as a proportionate public health response, partly due to the lack of vaccines and treatments at the time.

Now Attorney-General Michaelia Cash has warned that when 80 per cent of Australians over 16 are vaccinated, states may find it harder to argue that border closures are justified.

'Once you hit 80 per cent, you are in a fundamentally different position if you are looking at the issue of proportionality,' Senator Cash told The Australian.

'Based on the reasons for that decision in that initial case, and based on where we are now in relation to the vaccine and vaccination rates, one would now think the grounds of any argument has now shifted.'

Chris Merritt, vice-president of the Rule of Law Institute of Australia, has also argued that vaccines are a game-changer.

'McGowan's victory over Palmer was an aberration. It took place in circumstances that will never be repeated,' he wrote in The Australian last week, referring to the lack of vaccines last year. 

The battle centred on section 92 of the Constitution which provisions for free movement throughout the federation, saying: 'Trade, commerce, and intercourse among the states, whether by means of internal carriage or ocean navigation,

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