INTERVIEW WITH SALLY SARA, ABC RADIO NATIONAL
Wednesday, 24 June 2026
Topics: Introducing the Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026
E&OE……………………………………
Sally Sara: Well, staying with federal politics and turning to the opposition, Anne Ruston is the Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care and joins me now. Anne Ruston, welcome back to Radio National Breakfast.
Senator Ruston: Thanks, Sally.
Sally Sara: Yesterday, opposition leader Angus Taylor refused to say whether or not he supports multiculturalism. Do you support multiculturalism?
Senator Ruston: Look, absolutely, Sally, I do support multiculturalism. This country was built on multiculturalism.
Sally Sara: So what happened yesterday? Why was it so hard for your leader to say whether or not he supported it?
Senator Ruston: Look, I think Angus and I and the rest of the team in the Coalition are absolutely one when we say that we want a future for Australia that is built on respecting our values and our way of life. And I think we are absolutely all on a unity ticket when it comes to what we see the future of Australia is, and the future Australia is one that's based on multiculturalism.
Sally Sara: So why was it difficult for the opposition leader to articulate that clearly if that's a foundation and a uniting point for the coalition leadership?
Senator Ruston: Well, look, I'm not going to go into semantics of who said what word, but I do know that we in the coalition believe in an Australia where everyone respects our laws, they share our values and contributes to the fabric of our country. And that is multiculturalism and that is what we believe in.
Sally Sara: What would your message be to voters from a multicultural background who saw that exchange yesterday and didn't hear a clear backing from the Leader of the Opposition?
Senator Ruston: I think the Leader of the Opposition has been very, very clear about the Coalition's policy when it comes to the future of Australia. We want a policy where Australia is the beneficiary of everything that happens.
Sally Sara: But yesterday he was dancing around definitions of multiculturalism, monoculturalism. Should he have delivered a clearer message in your view, if this is your position?
Senator Ruston: Well, I mean, I think that Angus has been very clear in his position around what he wants for the future of Australia. And I think I've articulated that to you so far. And that is what I stand by, that we are a multicultural nation. We've always been one and we will be into the future. And my party, that I'm a proud member of, believes in that.
Sally Sara: The Greens have made a deal with the Government that will see Labor's capital gains tax and negative gearing changes pass the Parliament. Do you regret the Coalition's stance that excluded it from being in the room, being able to attempt negotiating changes to the tax package?
Senator Ruston: Well, there's absolutely no doubt that this tax package, first of all, was something that the Prime Minister promised more than 50 times before the election that he was going to make no changes. And then apparently it's OK for him to change his mind without taking those very significant changes back to the Australian people. And obviously, the Greens need to answer to their own constituency why they would do a deal with the Labor Party that is going to stop young Australians getting ahead. They need to explain that. I mean, This was a dirty deal that completely neglects any transparency, any accountability, any scrutiny of the Parliament of what massive, massive tax changes, tax increases that Australians are going to wear after this dirty deal with the Greens goes through this week.
Sally Sara: On a separate issue, you've introduced a private members' bill on the integrated assessment tool for aged care. You've introduced this to Parliament. What is that bill seeking to change?
Senator Ruston: Well, it's fundamentally a bill that seeks to make three changes, which aim to ensure that technology supports decision making, but it doesn't replace it. Right now, we have a situation where a computer makes the decision about what an older Australian's care needs and their care need priorities are, and there is no capacity for a clinically trained assessor to override that. The person has to go back through a convoluted, long and extended review in order to get any changes made if they believe their decision's wrong. And so the three things it seeks to do is to restore the discretion of a human assessor to make sure that the algorithm in their professional judgement doesn't make an error. It also requires greater transparency so that every decision that's made, the person can know how the algorithm was used, or how professional judgement was applied so they know why they received the level of care that they got. And we also want to make sure that anybody who has received an assessment since this algorithm computer-only decision-making mechanism has been in place, that they can have a reassessment because we believe that so many of the results have clearly been incorrect.
Sally Sara: Earlier this month the government announced a rapid review of the support at home prioritisation mechanism saying it will make sure that this integrated assessment tool keeps delivering for the people who need care most urgently. Is that a sign that the government is listening to some of these concerns?
Senator Ruston: Well, I think it is an admission in some small way that they know that they've got a problem. But the idea that they're going to put a second sort of process where they have a double assessment workaround, if the assessment tool is providing wrong answers, all that does is provide the wrong answer twice. So what we're saying is the government also needs to actually have a look under the bonnet of this assessment tool with some absolute priority to redesign it to make sure that the proper clinical input is put into the design of the tool and that they have a mechanism by which they can check to make sure that the decisions are actually correct because they seem to have put this tool in place and then haven't bothered to check it. We know through estimates that they didn't do any testing on this tool. They need to go back to the drawing board and get this right because right now older Australians are paying the price of the lacklustre and terrible way that the government has designed this particular
Sally Sara: Just very briefly, time's running against us. The deal between the Greens and the Government has also extended inquiry into the proposed overhaul of the NDIS for two months. Health Minister Mark Butler says it'll give the Government another opportunity to provide ongoing reassurances about its intentions. Has the Coalition been reassured or do you still have concerns?
Senator Ruston: Well I think the biggest problem we've got is that there is such a lack of detail when it comes to this particular set of bills. Obviously this deal that's been done by the Labor Party with the Greens we'll see, you know, I'm sure the deal's already been done, nothing's going to change in the next couple of months despite the fact that they've extended the inquiry period, but you know we hope that there will be an opportunity for us to make some sensible changes to the NDIS to make sure that the most vulnerable in our community aren't thrown out with some of these changes that the government quite clearly hasn't thought through properly.
Sally Sara: Anne Ruston, thank you very much for joining Breakfast this morning. Thanks, Sally. Anne Ruston, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care.
ENDS
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