Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The ties that bind us to our families and communities enrich our lives. Mature age should be a time to strengthen those ties, not cut them. That is why I am fighting for quality aged care for the residents of my electorate of Hasluck. Too often I have been approached by a son who drives two hours a week to visit his mother in a facility far from home. Too often I meet a wife who is only taken to visit her husband once a fortnight, well across the city. Too often what stands in the way is nothing but red tape—the complex overlay of Commonwealth, state or local government approvals processes. It is red tape that makes it too hard to engage an in-home nurse or too hard to combine high- and low-care facilities. Red tape makes it so much easier to fill a vacant plot with government housing rather than the integrated aged care our community needs.

In the long term, the coalition is committed to negotiate the Healthy Life, Better Ageing Agreement over five years. In the short term, the Shire of Kalamunda is one local government area where I want to see an aged care facility start this year. Experienced aged care providers are ready and waiting for opportunities to invest in Hasluck. I am meeting with my state government counterparts and local councils as part of a working group to streamline the process. We have compiled a spreadsheet of potential sites, and we are working to break down the barriers to each. We are working together to cut the red tape, not the ties that bind. We are working together to give families the opportunity to be together, to be in proximity and to share the quality of life that was always meant to be.