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

Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (10:29): I rise to speak to an amendment that adds human oversight through a new review process on certain aged-care assessment decisions made by the integrated assessment tool. I've been raising concerns about the integrated assessment tool, the algorithm currently being used to determine aged-care supports, since the legislation for it was passed by the House—22 times this year in parliament.

Since 1 November last year, there has been no mechanism for skilled clinicians to be able to override the final assessments of this tool. I've heard repeatedly from Kooyong constituents whose needs have been grossly underestimated by the integrated assessment tool, which has left them with aged care packages that have been manifestly inadequate. I repeatedly raised concerns about community members like Graham Crossan, an older member of the Kooyong community with motor neurone disease, and how he was underserved and undersupported by the aged-care system as a result of this tool.

I've repeatedly raised the concern that we have been creating robo-aged-care. That's why I'm really happy to see the government listening to reason and listening to the concerns of aged care experts and older Australians from around the country for the need to restore human oversight to aged-care decision-making. I'm really pleased that the government has recognised an amendment that the minister is to refer to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs.

I hope that this inquiry will be open to public submissions so that older Australians, like those I've heard from in Kooyong, and the experts from the sector can continue to voice their concerns about how the aged-care system is treating them in this country. On my initial reading of the amendments, the proposed review framework is a positive and constructive step, but there are details that will need to be resolved.

It's important that older Australians have the opportunity to discuss the algorithm's outcome with a skilled clinician that undertakes their assessment and that, if they're unhappy with that assessment, they can apply to the system governor for a review of its decision. The amendment is providing that a request for review must occur within seven days of the algorithm's original decision.

Urgency is good, but this is a very small window. I look forward to further detail from the minister on how the department plans to equip assessors with the knowledge to encourage applicants to pursue this pathway within that timeframe. The amendment states that a review will be undertaken if the circumstances prescribed by the aged-care rules apply, and I note that the minister has promised further consultation with the sector and older Australians on those rules.

I hope that he will—as my colleague the member for Curtin has suggested and as I've already spoken to in the main legislation that we're addressing today—consider the need for and press his colleagues to urgently legislate a system-wide framework for the use of automated decision-making in government. We've already in this House this week spoken to the ills, the harm and the gross damage undertaken and inflicted on Australians by robodebt.

We have to make sure that that doesn't happen again. I'd also like more detail on who's going to be undertaking the reviews under this amendment. It specifies that the system governor or their delegate, who has to occupy a position within the Department of Health, will be responsible for that decision.

It's absolutely crucial that those delegates have clinical experience. They cannot be public servants without the ability and the expertise to undertake that sort of review. I'm really pleased to see that the reviewer can vary decisions about both the classification and the priority of older Australians undertaking these assessments.

In other words, the review will be able to determine how much funding those individuals receive and how quickly. It's good that the reviewer is going to have to provide reasons for that decision-making within two weeks of the decision. I'd like to commend the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors for taking this step.

He has been pushed very hard by the crossbench on this issue, with good reason. We commend him for acting now. We would have liked him to act sooner, but you take what you can get in this place.

These amendments provide an opportunity for correct decisions under a system that may otherwise leave, and has been leaving, older Australians without the support that they need and deserve. Question agreed to. Bill, as amended, agreed to.