SENATOR THE HON ANNE RUSTON
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE
SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

TRANSCRIPT

ABC TAS BREAKFAST WITH LEON COMPTON

Friday, 5th June 2026

Topics: Aged Care Act Amendment

LEON COMPTON: The Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Anne Ruston, is concerned the federal government is using AI to make decisions about what you’re eligible for and that there might be limited opportunities to appeal that if you’re unhappy. Today, Senator Anne Ruston plans to put in an amendment for the Aged Care Act of 2024. We thought we’d ask her to talk about that because it’s an issue that matters enormously for lots of you. Senator, good morning to you.

ANNE RUSTON: Good morning, Leon.

LEON COMPTON: Tell me about the frustration that you’re having and hearing about at the moment with people’s assessments for their home care packages.

ANNE RUSTON: We have heard hundreds and hundreds of stories of older Australians who have received assessments that quite clearly are not providing them with the care that they need. We’re hearing stories about people being made to wait 10, 12 months. When you’re 93, and you’re really, really unwell and need care, having to wait for 10 or 12 months to receive that care is just outrageous. We also heard this week from the Inspector General of Aged Care that absolutely damning evidence about using a computer instead of a person to make a decision about these care needs. We’ve seen assessors quitting because they’re so distressed about the older Australians not getting the care that they think they need. These are qualified people. The Ombudsman thinks it’s serious enough, for them to do an investigation. You know, it has just been day after day, week after week, month after month of distressing stories about older Australians being denied care because the government decided a computer should make the decision about their care and not a person.

LEON COMPTON: To be clear, is this allegations that artificial intelligence is being used to calculate somebody’s eligibility for, and there are different levels of package that you can be deemed eligible for that comes with more money, more types of support. Are you saying AI is doing this work?

ANNE RUSTON: As we sit here today, the ultimate decision-maker about the level of care you get, so the level package you get and the priority under which you get that, so the time you’re going to have to wait to get that package, is not determined by a human, it is determined by an AI tool and there is no capacity for the human assessor to override that decision. The only option the older Australian has got is to go back through another rigorous process of review, in order to try and get their decision changed. We know hundreds and hundreds of people are seeking to do that, but the distress is incredible. And quite frankly, when you’re 93, you don’t have a lot of time to be going through these processes, particularly when you not well.

LEON COMPTON: Senator Anne Ruston is my guest this morning, Opposition Health and Aged Care spokesperson. Senator, I mean, we also know that there were significant delays when your government was in power. What was that? Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years ago. Significant delays there. The state of rather the Federal Labor Party say they’re going to allocate more resources to this matter. Is there evidence things are getting better?

ANNE RUSTON: That’s absolutely, things are getting worse. Absolutely so much worse than they were. When we left government, we had managed to put aged care packages into the system. We’d got the wait times down to less than three months. There was about 28,000 people on the wait list. I know that’s not good enough and we were on our way getting it down. As we sit here today, we know in excess of 200,000 older Australians are waiting for care. And on average, they’re waiting 10 to 12 months for that care. This government has presided over the worst acceleration in extension in wait times and increased numbers on the wait list that we have ever seen. In the space of four years, it has just been terrible. And they’re congratulating themselves about somehow that this is a good thing. I think it’s quite disgusting and disrespectful to older Australians.

LEON COMPTON: It’ll be interesting to see what sort of support your amendment to the Aged Care Act of 2024 gets in asking for what final human arbitration and opportunities for appeal when it comes to people looking at their aged care package they’ve been deemed eligible for. Senator, I appreciate you talking with us this morning. Thank you.

ANNE RUSTON: My pleasure.

ENDS