Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Since the election of the Rudd government, operational residential aged-care beds in Western Australia have increased by nearly 90 beds and community care places by more than 820. Indeed, the latest aged-care approvals round saw a total of 1,544 new aged-care places for Western Australia. It consisted of 519 residential aged-care places, as I pointed out yesterday—414 were high care and 105 low care; and 1,025 community care places worth over $50 million in annual recurrent funding. This brings the total of operational aged-care places in Western Australia to more than 19,900, which is quite a considerable number.

The member asked me generally about the aged-care approvals round and the action that this government was taking in terms of future provisions. I would like to remind the House that back in June I announced the results of the aged-care approvals round. Across the nation more than 10,000 new aged-care places were made available. That included another successful aged-care—

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