Roger Cook leaves Canberra with promise minister Sam Rae will visit Perth, but no extra aged care funding

Premier Roger Cook leaves Canberra confident the Federal Government understands Western Australia’s problems with aged care but without any concrete commitments to bring forward much-needed funding. Mr Cook and his Health Minister Meredith Hammat and Aged Care Minister Simone McGurk spent Tuesday in Parliament House in Canberra meeting with their Federal counterparts to press the case for a greater share of home care package funding for the State. The WA Government has blamed a shortage of aged care places for the record levels of ambulance ramping and bed block in hospitals. Mr Cook raised this directly with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Health Minister Mark Butler and new Aged Care Minister Sam Rae, before his ministers had a more in-depth discussion with Mr Rae. “I think it’s fair to say they acknowledge that there’s some challenges in Western Australia when it comes around to aged care,” the Premier told The West Australian. “Minister Rae committed to coming to WA as soon as this parliamentary session is completed, to meet with both the government and industry to identify any unique challenges to WA. “I came away from that confident they understand what the challenges in WA are, and pleased that they were committed to working with us to address them together.” Mr Butler and Mr Rae’s offices both characterised the meetings as positive and constructive, but were tight-lipped on any outcomes. However, Mr Rae – who Mr Cook described as “pretty impressive” – has committed to heading to Perth before mid-September, when he’ll talk to providers. The West Australians were pushing for Commonwealth funding for more aged care beds, clearing the backlog of home care packages and expanding transitional pathways to get people out of hospital if they didn’t need to be there. The Cook Government has argued that WA is short-changed because it gets 7.7 per cent of home care package funding but has more than 10 per cent of the nation’s older population. However, the Commonwealth says WA’s funding is proportionate to its share of the population. The two departments will work together to make sure they have the same data. WA has also received about 17 per cent of grants offered to help build new aged care services in regional and remote areas. Another round of these grants will be announced in September. A new aged care system comes into effect in November – the start date was pushed back from July – and the Federal Government has promised the changes will come with an extra 80,000 home care places in the first 12 months. “Until then, my number one priority is ensuring that older people continue to receive care and services, and until November, we’ll continue to assign packages every single week,” Mr Rae told Parliament after being asked about the growing waitlist of people who have been assessed as needing support but haven’t got the funding. “I can assure the member, people who are assessed as high priority will continue to receive their packages within a month.” On average, 2700 home care packages are approved every week — but this rate isn’t speeding up yet. WA Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas said the visit from Mr Cook and his ministers “was obviously not particularly compelling”. “If the only result achieved is the Federal Aged Care Minister being dispatched west to verify the crack squad’s complaints about a lack of aged care funding, then I think we can categorise this mission as a failure,” he said. But Cabinet minister Paul Papalia said the presentation of a united front was “the only way you do get success in Canberra” in terms of fighting for WA. “The photo in The West with all of the Western Australian federal politicians sitting alongside our delegation, I would hope that’s a good indicator that we might, you know, we might have some success,” he said. Mr Cook also spoke with Mr Albanese and Environment Minister Murray Watt about the environmental protection law changes the Federal Government now plans to put to Parliament before the end of November. Pressure from the WA Government and the resources industry scuttled an attempt to overhaul the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in the previous term. But the Premier says he’s comfortable now with the direction Senator Watt is taking. The new-look overhaul is expected to include an Environmental Protection Agency that has a compliance and monitoring role only, and a system to allow States to assess projects before ministers at both State and Federal levels make the final decisions. Mr Cook said there was a lot of goodwill for Senator Watt’s work. “We support that accelerated process, we think it’s this time that we need to get we need to get moving on national environmental law reform,” he said. “We continue to support Murray … because I think he’s undertaking a great process of consultation in relation to the principles of the act. “Now, obviously, they have to be transferred, or translated into the actual act itself.” Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the Coalition was willing to work with the Government on “sensible reforms … because we know the deadweight loss and the drain this is having”, but also called on it to crack the whip on approvals happening faster now. Ms Ley claimed ownership of the overhaul since she was the minister who commissioned the Samuel review now being used as a blueprint for change. “They’re talking about it again, as if it’s a big new thing,” she said.