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

Today I want to speak about aged care in Western Australia and the reality that we are confronting: demand is rising, and the system has been under pressure for too long. Older Western Australians deserve better. In WA we are seeing the consequences of years of underinvestment: older people waiting too long for a place, families under strain and hospitals carrying pressures they were never designed to hold.

That is why the Albanese Labor government is taking targeted, practical action to rebuild capacity where it's needed the most. We are placing a further $100-million investment in the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program, and we are directing funding into identified hotspot areas, including Perth. This funding is aimed at unlocking projects that are already close to viable, getting more beds delivered within the next two years and easing pressure across the system. This builds on more than $1 billion already invested since 2022—the largest investment of its kind—increasing supply while improving quality.

We're not stopping there. Labor is supporting aged care across the system, investing in regional and rural providers, expanding and modernising facilities and strengthening the workforce needed to deliver safe, high-quality care because this is about more than beds. It is about dignity, and it is about ensuring that every older person, whether they live in Perth, the regions or remote communities, can access care that is safe, culturally appropriate and close to home. We know the scale of this challenge. Our government is acting, investing, building and delivering real outcomes, because aged care is a measure of our values. Under Labor, we are getting on with the job.