STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (13:44): I add my congratulations to Senator Sterle as well. The FOI revelations reported by Melissa Davey in the Guardian today about the government's IAT, integrated assessment tool, are damning. Time and again the minister has sought to assure the Senate and the public that there's nothing to see here, that everything is fine and that there is human oversight.

Today, we know for certain that that is not true. We know that the government was warned that its broken algorithm could not be overwritten by human intervention. Despite assessors receiving assurances, and then reassurances, from the department that they would have powers to change incorrect algorithm decisions, officials realised at the eleventh hour that this would violate proposed regulations.

Even more damning, proposed solutions to remedy this before the IAT went live were ignored for expediency's sake. There's an email saying, 'Yes, we see that that's a problem, but we're just going to go ahead with this.' Then we had the cover-up and we had the talking point saying, 'Actually, there is human oversight.' The government and the department have tried to convince us that someone who looks at a decision and then just rubber stamps it is somehow human oversight when they have zero ability to change that decision.

This is having such a real impact. I've heard from Canberrans who have been impacted. There are so many different stories.

I welcome the government making moves to fix this, but this doesn't cut it. This level of deception does not cut it.