Aged Care Minister Sam Rae offers "private briefing" after refusing to release documents
The Minister stated the request was too onerous, capturing 130,000 pages.
In October, Western Australian Senator Fatima Payman requested the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing release documents related to Government's spending on aged care technology.
The documents were due to be released on 21 November, but three days after the due date, Aged Care and Seniors Minister Sam Rae wrote to Senator Payman, stating the request was too onerous, capturing 130,000 pages and requiring "thousands of hours" of public servants' time.
"In light of this, I have not directed the Department to deploy resources to compile and assess those documents," he wrote.
Instead, Aged Care Minister Sam Rae, in a letter to Senate President Sue Lines, offered Senator Payman a "private briefing" on the content referred to in the Order and to supply documents captured by the Order that are already in the public domain.
Senator Payman sought documentation related to spending on:
- the Government Provider Management System,
- the Aged Care Business to Government project, and
- the integration of My Health Record and My Aged Care, among other things.
The due date for the documentation is 5pm 27 November 2025, but at the time of writing the documents had not been published.
The Federal Government allocated $1.4 billion to the Department of Health and Aged Care in the 2024-25 Budget for investment in technology systems, including approximately $600 million for the sustainment of key systems and $800 million for the implementation of reforms.
Delays in implementing the Government's information technology systems were a factor in the four-month postponement of the introduction of the new Aged Care Act. The systems are now being staged to allow for more time.
