Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

After robodebt wrongly accused hundreds of thousands of Australians of being in debt, this government promised that it would never let something like this happen again. Now, the government is rolling out tools for automation in aged care and the NDIS, so that your level of support is determined by an automated tool and human assessors are not allowed to change or override a decision even if they think it's wrong. This comes more than two years after the robodebt royal commission recommended a legislated framework for automated decision-making in government and clear transparency and oversight. Despite the gravity of getting this wrong, the government has not acted on this recommendation.

I'm not arguing against the use of automated tools. Done well, automation can help government move faster and be more efficient. But we need a clear framework for the use of automation to prevent a repeat of robodebt. This framework must be legislated and mandatory for government. It must include transparency requirements so Australians can understand automated decisions that affect them. It must include decision-level controls so that government gets the decisions right. And it must embed provisions for review and oversight so Australians can be confident that the government is following the rules for automated decision-making. This is how we get automated decision-making right. This is how we unlock government decisions that are fairer and faster.

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