In another embarrassing defeat for Labor's unravelling aged care reforms, the Senate has this afternoon backed a Greens motion demanding that the government abolish its Integrated Assessment Tool, which was the subject of yesterday's damning Four Corners investigation.
The substantive motion was agreed to without a vote being recorded, after the Coalition and the crossbench earlier voted in support of the Greens motion to suspend standing orders.
This is the latest in a series of humiliations the parliament has inflicted on the Albanese Government's new aged care system, including being forced by the parliament to release 20,000 more home care packages, backtracking on some co-payments, and launching a rapid review into the algorithm.
Just last month Labor suffered another parliamentary defeat when the Senate passed a bill co-sponsored by the Greens to restore human override to the IAT.
As stated by Greens Older People spokesperson Senator Penny Allman-Payne:
"The writing is on the wall for Labor's aged care assessment tool.
"It's a friendless system that older people, carers and experts have been screaming about for months.
"It's systematically under-assessing need and priority, denying care to thousands and leaving people with degenerative conditions desperately short of even the bare minimum funding they need.
"Now the parliament has been crystal clear: it's time for Labor to go back to the drawing board on aged care assessments. Older people deserve a tested assessment system designed by experts that has their rights at its core."
Full text of motion here:
Motion by leave- Integrated Assessment Tool (in between items of business)
That-the Senate:
(a) notes that the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) is untested, structurally flawed and systematically under-assessing the care needs of older Australians, especially those living with mental health conditions, cognitive issues and frailty; and
(b) calls on the Government to:
(i) take immediate action to abolish the IAT,
(ii) replace the IAT with a tested assessment system that is designed with clinical experts,
(iii) ensure this new assessment system has guaranteeing the rights of older people as its first priority, and
(iv) restore the role of clinical professionals in the assessment process and reinstate the ability for human override.
