Health Insurance Amendment (Incentive Payments and Other Measures) Bill 2026

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) (13:02): The bill's decision-making framework is strictly limited to the administration of incentive payment programs. It does not authorise and cannot be used for any form of clinical decision-making about a patient's diagnosis, treatment or health care. More generally, it's intended to support the efficient, timely and consistent administration of high-volume incentive payment programs.

It does, as I've already indicated, include multiple safeguards to ensure full transparency and accountability for automated decision-making. Only actions set out in the rules will be able to be automated. These will be subject to stakeholder consultation and to parliamentary scrutiny.

Any action that requires any level of discretion will require ministerial satisfaction that it is appropriate to automate, and a standard operating procedure instrument setting out the process of how such action will be made must be made and published. There are also, as I've indicated previously, transparency requirements that include website publication of automated arrangements, notices telling affected persons when action was taken by a computer, annual reporting and powers for human decision-makers to substitute a correct or preferable decision.

As I have said already, automation does not displace review and reconsideration rights for providers.