Liberals' Bill introduces human oversight for Support at Home assessments
- Bill introduced: Human oversight restored to IAT assessments
- Review requests: Assessment appeals rose after IAT rollout
- Clinical judgement: Assessors regain final decision authority
- Senate debate: IAT scrutiny continues under aged care reforms
Liberal Party Senator Wendy Askew introduced a Private Senators’ Bill in the Senate on Tuesday on behalf of Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Senator Anne Ruston.
The Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026 would create amendments to subsections 62(1A) and 76(1A) aimed at ensuring "the IAT functions in a supporting capacity only, and that the approved needs assessor retains authority to record an assessment outcome based on their professional judgment."
In the Senate, Senator Askew said, "The fact that we need a law to put a human being back in charge of a human decision tells you everything you need to know about the direction of this Government's aged care reforms."
The IAT, which was developed to ensure consistency and fairness in the system, has created a different reality, Askew said.
In the year before the algorithm, 170 people asked for their assessment to be reviewed. In the five months after it, 834 asked for their assessments to be reviewed.
"That is not a glitch. That is a system buckling under its own flaws," she said.
The Bill is unlikely to be considered in the Senate until after the Winter recess in August. If it is passed in the Senate it will be sent to the House of Representatives for consideration. The Opposition will need the support of the minor parties to get the bill passed in the Senate.
Human oversight of the IAT and the tool itself, have been some of the most contentious issues of last year's aged care reforms.
In April, the Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine (ANZSGM) called for an urgent review of the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) saying it "risks under-identifying frailty, vulnerability and clinical complexity" at the entry point of the aged care system.
At a Senate hearing in April, long-standing concerns from operators, peak bodies and the community about the quality of Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) decisions reached Federal Parliament.
In the House of Representatives in February, Independent MP Dr Monique Ryan asked the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors Sam Rae: “Minister, are these once-in-a-generation reforms just ‘robo aged care’?”
