Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

Am I to take from the response that I've just received from you that the department doesn't have any real idea of what the cost of ICT changes is likely to be on the sector? I note you made the comments about building an entirely new system and them being expensive and about the government being required to build an entirely new system. Aged-care providers are going to be required to build entirely new systems in order to make the changes that are coming. It's not just the government that's going to have to build these entirely new systems.

I want to be clear that the government does not know what the cost of ICT changes are going to be on the sector. I once again put that alongside $1.2 billion that has been allocated to government ICT and the clear recognition by the government of the massive change in ICT that's required to implement these reforms. That's going to cost them $1.2 billion. I'm interested to understand what the process was that the government or the agency have undertaken to determine that the support to the sector is only going to be $10 million against $1.2 billion. It's going to be restricted only to those people in the sector that provide one part of aged-care services—home care. To be really clear: the government does not know or have any idea what the cost of ICT changes is going to be on the sector?