Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I joined the Labor Party to deliver—for health, for aged care, for our community services and for Western Australia. After a decade of neglect from those opposite, Australia has lost the care from aged care. Older Australians did the hard yards to build this country, and they deserve to have better access to a system that puts quality, care and safety first. They deserve to have a greater say about the care and services they receive. They deserve the support to stay at home for longer, if that's what they want to do. And the dedicated workers who provide care for our mums and our dads, our aunts and our uncles, our nanas and our pops, deserve to be paid more for the important work that they do.

That is what the Albanese Labor government believes in—investing in our care services and investing in our older Australians—and that is exactly what we are delivering. The fourth increase to aged-care worker award wages and historic investments into aged care, no matter what your postcode is.

I was with the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, Sam Rae, at the Pam Corker House in Waroona, in WA's Peel region, to announce almost $30 million in investment across 12 projects in WA. This is part of a $300 million investment through the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program. This is on top of the $651 million already invested into aged care by the Albanese Labor government. We are rolling out 80,000 new home-care places by 1 November across this country because older Western Australians, from Kojonup to Fitzroy Crossing and from Narrogin to Warburton, deserve a government that listen, support and deliver. That is exactly what the Albanese Labor government does—it delivers.