MOTIONS

Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE (Queensland) (15:04): I seek leave to move a motion relating to the integrated assessment tool, as circulated in my name. Leave not granted. Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE: Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of Senator Waters, I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the integrated assessment tool.

This suspension is urgent because the Four Corners program last night revealed the shocking impact of the government's flawed and untested Integrated Assessment Tool on older Australians. It is urgent that we suspend to consider this issue because the answers given by the minister in last night's Four Corners program indicated that the minister showed himself to be utterly ignorant of the severe and ongoing impacts that this flawed tool is having on older Australians.

It is urgent that we suspend standing orders because the answers given by Senator Wong to the questions raised by Senator Colbeck further indicate that the government does not understand the incredible hardship that is being placed on older people and their families who cannot get the care that they need in a timely way. This matter is urgent, and we should suspend standing orders because we know that the Integrated Assessment Tool algorithm is flawed.

We know that the Integrated Assessment Tool is consistently underassessing older people's care needs, and we know, from the answers that the minister continues to give, that the government is not fully alive to this issue. It is urgent that we suspend standing orders to debate this motion because we know that tiny differences in this flawed algorithm are seeing some people having their care support halved.

We know that it is urgent, and we should suspend standing orders to debate this because people like Sean Dorney—who's had motor neurone disease for a decade, who has sought a reassessment and who is not eligible for the fast-track mechanism that the minister says has been implemented, because he already has a care package—is still waiting eight months later for an assessment when he has a neurodegenerative disease.

It is urgent that we discuss the need for the government to scrap the flawed Integrated Assessment Tool because we heard clearly in evidence given by the department that it was never tested and verified externally and independently by clinicians. We know that this is urgent and, therefore, warrants a suspension of standing orders to debate because we know that the minister's view that there are a tolerable number of requests for review is flawed.

We know that hundreds of people are not bothering to challenge the algorithm, because they are worried that they will be worse off. We know that the burden to challenge an algorithm that is flawed and to fix a problem that the government was told was foreseeable should not be placed on older people and their families. It is urgent that we debate this because people like 96-year-old Audrey don't have time to wait for the government to scrap a tool that is saying that, despite her last assessment being 12 years ago, her care needs have not increased.

It is urgent that we suspend standing orders to debate this issue because we know that the minister is out of his depth, does not understand his brief and has failed categorically to listen to the concerns that have been raised in the hearings that we have had in the Support at Home inquiry and in the questions that we have raised at estimates. When clinicians, when providers, when older people, when their families and when the people who work in the sector are all telling the government that this tool is flawed and is underassessing the care needs of older people, it is urgent that the government acts.

That is why it is urgent that this motion be put before the Senate. I urge every senator to support the government scrapping this integrated assessment tool, going back to the beginning, consulting with clinicians and restoring human override so that no older person in this country is subject to a computer program deciding their care.