Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (09:27): I want to start by thanking the opposition and the Greens for their work on this, and the outstanding work that Senator Ruston and Senator Allman-Payne have done through estimates and through other inquiries. I'd like to thank all the journalists who have covered the case studies—the real human impact of systems that aren't delivering for Australians.

Often, we hear about numbers. We hear about big numbers in terms of cost, the number of Australians affected et cetera. Those numbers are humans.

Behind every number is the story of an older Australian, their families, their support networks and their carers. I want to share one story that was sent to my office by a Canberran about a woman in her 70s that we'll call 'Donna'. Donna was admitted to the Canberra Hospital with confusion, cognitive decline and cellulitis after being unable to manage her own wound care.

Over recent months, she has become lost in her community and been picked up by police. She has not been eating and was not managing her own finances, spending well beyond her means. Her family had spent nine months trying to arrange an ACAT assessment, without success.

In hospital, staff requested an ACAT. I'm hearing a worrying trend. It has been the case for the last few years, where older Australians are having to go to hospital to then get priority ACAT assessments.

Despite the cognitive decline, despite the fact that she wasn't eating and despite the fact that she was getting lost in her own neighbourhood, the algorithm said she qualified for a level 1 package. That's less than two hours of care a week, and that can only be challenged through some complex reconsideration process with the department. Donna couldn't be discharged, because, obviously, the hospital knew that Donna's needs were far above a level 1 package, so she stayed in hospital.

That's hardly a good outcome for anyone—for Donna, for her family or for all of us, who pay for our hospital system. We've heard from the government many times that there are humans involved, but it turns out that the humans involved are inputting the data and then we pay someone to rubberstamp whatever the algorithm says. The person who's rubberstamping can't actually change the outcome.

That's not proper oversight, and that needs to change. There was a welcome announcement from Minister Rae after the pressure from the Senate, but it's very unclear exactly what that's going to deliver, so I really thank the Senate for debating this important issue and for having brought forward the Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026 to stand up for older Australians, to stand up for our communities and to listen to the robodebt royal commission.

Commissioner Holmes was so clear about the need for human oversight when it comes to automated decision-making. Recommendations 17.1 and 17.2 of the royal commission talked about the need for a government-wide act that actually governs the use of automated decision-making in laws and in delegated legislation. As yet, we have not seen such a bill, and it's my understanding that the government is a fair way off doing that.

Recommendation 17.2 talked about the need for independent oversight, and this is a real frustration for us as senators—when we ask the department how the algorithm actually works, we're told: 'Well, it's commercial in confidence. We can't let you know that, because then people could game the system.' So, clearly, we need an independent, well-resourced regulator of sorts that can actually look at the algorithm and decide, 'Yes, this is in line with what we would expect.' I commend this bill.

Again, I thank Senators Ruston and Allman-Payne, the coalition and the Greens for their work on this bill, and I commend it to the Senate.