Australia’s long-awaited Support at Home (SAH) reforms were meant to simplify access to aged-care services. Instead, frontline assessors across every state and territory are warning that the rushed rollout of the new Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) is creating what some describe as “the next Robodebt – only in aged care.”
Interviews conducted with assessors in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, and the ACT reveal the same story:
insufficient training, flawed automation, unfixable assessment errors, inconsistent outcomes, and a system that risks harming older Australians who urgently need support.
These workers have asked to remain anonymous, fearing repercussions for speaking out – but their concerns are consistent, detailed, and alarming.
“We were given two hours of training for a system that needed months.”
Aged-care assessors nationwide reported that they received:
- only 2-3 hours of scheduled training for a system so complex it needed months of preparation
- training sessions that blew out to 6 hours because the content was too dense
- six-hour educational videos they had no realistic time to watch
- extremely poor-quality screenshots and thin instructional materials
- a short, temporary “sandbox environment” that offered barely any chance to practise
- contradictory guidance about how the algorithm actually works
One assessor from NSW said:
“We watched the six-hour videos at double or quadruple speed because it was impossible to do them during assessments. No one understood the system before we were forced to use it.”
An ACT assessor summarised it bluntly:
“The training was nowhere near sufficient. We were thrown in the deep end.”
The IAT locks itself – and errors become permanent
The most serious warning from assessors is the system’s design flaw:
✔ Once the IAT is finalised, it cannot be changed.
✔ Once the Support Plan is delegated, the priority and level are locked – even if wrong.
✔ Any correction requires a brand-new assessment, delaying care.
This means:
- errors in functional coding
- missed cognitive or safety risks
- carer sustainability concerns
- incorrect tick-boxes
- misinterpreted domains
- incorrect SAH level
- incorrect urgency priority
… are permanently embedded into the client’s record.
Aged-care workers say this is not just inconvenient – it is dangerous.
One Queensland assessor explained:
“If the IAT is wrong, we can’t fix it. We have to start again from scratch. Clients who need urgent support end up waiting weeks or months because the system won’t let us correct a mistake.”
Another from Victoria added:
“The delegate cannot change anything after the fact. We are legally required to make accurate decisions, but the software prevents us from doing it.”
Automation is making decisions humans are legally required to make
The IAT uses a hidden algorithm to generate:
- the SAH level (1–8)
- the client’s priority (Urgent, High, Medium, Standard)
But assessors report:
- the algorithm is opaque
- the logic is unexplained
- similar clients can produce different results
- domestic assistance can mask personal-care needs
- carer strain is often ignored
- cognitive decline and safety risk are under-weighted
A South Australian assessor said:
“If two assessors enter the same case, the algorithm can still spit out different levels. We can’t see the scoring, so we can’t explain why.”
A WA assessor called it:
“Robodebt’s cousin. Automated decisions with no transparency.”
Staff are told: “Don’t override the algorithm.”
Even when the algorithm is wrong, assessors in every jurisdiction report being told:
- “Do not override it.”
- “Accept the automation.”
- “Overrides should be extremely rare.”
- “Let it go through unless it’s wildly off.”
But legally, the delegate is required to:
- consider all relevant clinical information
- ensure the decision is accurate and reasonable
- exercise meaningful human discretion
Assessors say they are being placed in an impossible position:
“We are told not to override the algorithm, but the law requires that we do if the output is wrong. It’s the same kind of contradiction that caused Robodebt.”
Older Australians could be harmed – and assessors know it
Frontline staff fear the system could lead to:
- dangerous delays in urgent support
- missed risks for people with dementia
- carer collapse
- increased emergency presentations
- premature entry into residential care
- unfair waiting times
- inconsistent decisions based on which assessor or state you live in
One assessor warned:
“A client with falls risk might be given Standard priority because the algorithm didn’t pick up the complexity. If they fall while waiting, what then?”
Another added:
“We are clinically responsible, but the software ties our hands.”
The workload has doubled
Every assessor interviewed said the same thing:
- The IAT takes longer
- Reviewing the algorithm takes even longer
- Escalations to managers are frequent
- Reassessments are increasing
- Delegation bottlenecks have formed
- Moral injury is rising
One NSW assessor said:
“For every assessment, we do the job twice – once for the client, once to check the algorithm didn’t get it wrong.”
This is a national failure – not a local one
Every state and territory described the same issues:
✔ Victoria: rushed, inconsistent, legally concerning
✔ NSW: unworkable, visibly unfinished
✔ Queensland: algorithm anomalies, priority errors
✔ SA: incorrect levels, broken escalation pathways
✔ WA: locked assessments creating delays
✔ Tasmania: insufficient training and confused staff
✔ ACT: compressed training and no transparency
This is systemic, not isolated.
Experts warn that this has all the hallmarks of another Robodebt
Several experienced assessors independently made the same comparison:
- flawed automated decision-making
- poor training
- lack of transparency
- instructions not to override
- legally questionable outcomes
- harm to vulnerable people
- systemic design flaws
- rushed rollout under political pressure
One assessor said:
“Robodebt was illegal because it replaced human judgement with a bad algorithm. This is aged care’s version. The people who will suffer are frail older Australians.”
What needs to happen now
Frontline assessors suggested several urgent reforms:
- Transparent algorithm documentation
-
Ability to correct IAT errors post-finalisation
-
Ability to adjust priority after delegation
-
Real training – not a condensed crash course
-
Clear guidance on when overrides are appropriate
-
A national audit of SAH outcomes for accuracy and safety
-
A safety-net process for urgent cases caught by incorrect priority
Conclusion
Frontline assessors are dedicated, highly trained professionals.
They want SAH to work – because older Australians deserve better.
But the system they have been given is:
- rushed
- opaque
- legally fragile
- clinically unsafe
- operationally unworkable
And the people raising the alarm today are the same people who prevented Robodebt-style harm in the past.
Aged-care workers speak now because they see the danger coming.
Australia should listen.
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If there isone area where computerisation should never go it is that of caring for human worries. Old folk in need of assistance ,stressed ones needing income support , or small children all require the flexibility of compassionate human thinking , not algorithms spat out for efficiency.
We are racing down a slope that leads to great human suffering, for no good reason .
As an Assessor in Victoria with 10 years experience in this field, I can confirm that everything in this article is completely spot on. I have a clinical duty of care as a social worker that the federal government is essentially asking me to ignore. I used to have great work satisfaction and genuinely felt as though I was helping seniors and making a difference in their lives. Now I feel as though I am putting vulnerable people at risk and letting people down everyday. There is a reason that experienced Assessors are leaving the field in droves. The government should NEVER have privatised aged care Assessment nor service delivery. They are costing the country millions and putting vulnerable Australians at great risk.
Efficiency and quality comes from humans doing well, not machines doing twists, cuts, shortings, omissions. Civil service was always the great idea. It must be done well, planned, recorded, even inspected and supervised. And it must be “correctly” funded by best assessment.
Privatise it means in effect ‘paralyse it’. It is the government admitting that it is just too hard to deal with, so push it out the door and let others sort it out. Countrywide, we have shambolic governments, a mix of rudderless ships sailing without direction, in-fighting and political point scoring the main act/s of the day. Aged care in Tasmania has not a hope in the world, if we look at how badly the new Tasmanian Ferries and their docking facilities are being bungled. Add on top a government determined to build an AFL Stadium, a white elephant we cannot afford, in a place we least need or want it.
We have the government and the results from government that we vote for.
Not every one of course, but those who vote based on incomplete and/or inaccurate information fed to them through a media that is only interested in eyes and ears on their product, and political parties that communicate with the people on the basis of capturing votes rather than providing solutions, which is the majority.
The LNP in government slashes public service personnel and outsources what used to be done by a public service that had continuity of skills, experience and knowledge no matter which party/parties were in government. A public service that was mostly non political and unbiased. Howard started this rot, and every government since, including labor governments, have exacerbated this brain drain of the public service to the private sector where the whole focus is in profiteering and appeasing whichever master is currently handing out multi million dollar contracts.
Government is now not about doing what is best for the country and its people it is about doing just enough to please everyone and in the end not really pleasing anyone. Meanwhile our public institutions are either sold off to the private sector, pillaged by the private sector of the knowledge and intellect that the public service needs or government departments are reduced to forelock tugging sycophants who are not able to or willing to fulfil the role that the public service was originally based on. A fount of skills, experience and knowledge that, no matter which political party was in government, carried that experience and knowledge and those skills into the offices of politicians tasked with governing, politicians whose focus is not gaining the skills, experience and knowledge to government but on staying in government and filling the party coffers by sucking up to major donors.
We are governed by people who are not trained to do the jobs that they get when they win government and the people and the country pays the price.
Each successive government does piecemeal stuff, some of it ok, most of it average, some of it downright dangerous. There is no continuity. Most, if not all, of the good stuff that the ALP manages to get through parliament is immediately jettisoned by an incoming LNP government, even if the LNP in opposition has agreed with it and waved it through.
We scoff at China and its lack of democracy. Our politicians, security services and media continue to pour out to the population that China is the enemy, because that is what our US masters tells them to say, but the way China has been governed in the past 40 years has allowed it to have long term goals that have been achieved, it has taken over 800 million of its people out of poverty, it has allowed it to become a major player on the global stage and to outstrip the other major player, the US, in almost every way.
China is not without its problems but one of them is not that they have governments that think in three year electoral cycles and spend most of that time electioneering.
While ever we continue to have political parties whose role in opposition is to oppose everything that the governing party proposes, our country and its people will continue to see in every area that supports the people and the country’s future, the same that is happening in this aged care legislation, legislation rushed through without enough consultation, just to get something out so that the people think that they have done something, that they can boast of pushing through multitudes of legislation, much of which is inconsequential to the average Australians lived experience but which make for good sound bites on the election trail.
Is there a solution, maybe, but much of it I believe depends on the voters, we elect these people, many of whom are unqualified and unfit to hold the offices that they hold and the state of politics is such that in an environment where building wealth is the ultimate goal and where being in the service of the public and the public eye is derided , public service does not attract those who are qualified and who could, if they chose, provide the kind of representation that considers what is best for the people and the country now and long into the future.
This is becoming one of the most significant areas of government, budget, NGO, PS and provider/client support for our burgeoning senior population.
In our dominant native permanent popualtion cohort, icreasing longevity is a long term population growth driver vs relative decline in or static working age (kept up by international student numbers counted in).
However, our RW MSM and influencer ecosystem is targeting same seniors with dog whistling the solution, working immigrants esp. temporary as ‘net financial (budget) contributors’, then they depart.
Simply a dumbed down deflection and wedge vs ALP etc. to protect fossil fueled social Darwinism of the 1%……though many in the ALP support the latter…..