Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026

Ms WATSON-BROWN (Ryan) (10:17): I want to speak very briefly about the government's proposed changes to the integrated assessment tool. The Greens fully support the establishment of a permanent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aged-care commissioner. The government's amendments show that Labor are slowly starting to recognise that they've built a system that is untenable.

The government says it will provide an escalation pathway for those underassessed by their aged-care assessment tool. We know, though, that the integrated assessment tool is broken. It systematically underassesses older Australians with cognitive issues, mental health conditions and frailty.

This is the same tool that was giving older people with MND 10 times less funding than was necessary. This is not a tool that can be fixed with an escalation pathway to tape over everything it gets wrong. Older people don't need another escalation pathway to the department; they need human override by clinicians and the new assessment tool.

Older Australians expect to be treated with dignity, respect and care. They expect and deserve to have decisions about their care made by human beings. The integrated assessment tool is a symptom of the aged-care system that Labor has created—one where real people, in the later stages of their lives, are subject to the whims of an algorithm.

I've received many emails, phone calls and letters from older Australians and their adult children in my electorate. Without exception, they're absolutely horrified by the lack of transparency and the callous disregard that Labor's aged-care system is putting them through. Securing aged care is really hard, and it should not be this way.

The fact that Labor is proposing these amendments shows that pressure is working. This bill and these amendments regarding the IAT will go to a Senate inquiry, where the Greens will continue to work across the whole parliament to fix this broken system.