Portfolio — 30 March 2026

The Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, Mr Rae, used question time on 30 March to defend the performance of the single assessment system's integrated assessment tool, confirming that every assessment is completed by a qualified human assessor with clinical input documented throughout [TA-260330-house-326949c748de:s245]. The minister's central performance claim rested on two statistics: 180,000 assessments completed since November, and a review request rate of less than half a per cent of that total.

The sharpest contrast he drew was on timeliness — median assessment times are now consistently under one month against a figure of up to ten months under the previous system [TA-260330-house-326949c748de:s245]. He also pointed to the previous system's closure with approximately four billion dollars sitting unspent in older Australians' accounts as evidence of systemic failure the new model was designed to correct.

The minister framed the integrated assessment tool as delivering equity and consistency, arguing that outcomes no longer vary by geographic location or the identity of the individual assessor. The parliamentary record for this sitting day covers only this exchange; no comms-stream material is present in the window.