MOTIONS

Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (15:32): I rise to support the motion and the urgency of the motion moved by Senator Allman-Payne. I thank her for bringing this to the chamber. It is urgent that this government gets the message about what's happening to senior Australians.

It is urgent that this government actually acts rather than talks about the problem. It is urgent. The situation for senior Australians waiting for a home-care package and the number of people waiting for a home-care package is the worst that it has ever been.

It is urgent that this chamber delivers that message to this government so that they act rather than just talk about the problem. It's clearly urgent, when you have people like Professor Kathy Eagar AM saying that the algorithm is fundamentally and completely flawed, that the government actually acts. I think it's quite reasonable that this chamber reinforces the message urgently that it sent to the government when they passed legislation to allow a qualified assessor to override the algorithm.

It's urgent that this chamber actually has the opportunity to reinforce that. It's urgent that they actually get on with doing the job that they promised to do before the 2022 election. Because of the fact that the situation for people waiting for a home-care package and the number of people on the waiting list is worse than its ever been, it's urgent that this chamber has the opportunity to send that message.

The more than 5,000 families of people who died in the last 12 months alone waiting for a home care package would think that it's urgent too. The more than 5,000 families who lost a loved one while they were waiting for a home-care package just in the last year, I think, would think it's urgent that this chamber deal with this as well. It's extraordinary that the minister gets up and says that this is not as urgent as the media bargaining code, and it says a lot about the government's priorities that it thinks that the media bargaining code is more important than the 5,000 people who died while they were waiting for a home-care package in the last 12 months.

It's disgraceful. Interestingly, if we go back to the 1979 IBM training manual, it says: A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision. And I think we should urgently apply that principle to this issue in the context of this debate.

(Time expired) The PRESIDENT: The question is that the motion to suspend standing orders be agreed to.