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This is a documented case study of delay, duplicated administration and a clinically contradictory quote — prepared 4 September 2026. It is an individual experience presented separately from national statistics. See Evidence & Sources for the distinction.

Who Watches the Watchers?

A secret algorithm is deciding how much care older Australians receive. Billions of taxpayer dollars are at stake. We say: show us the model, show us the money, show us the people.

If the Department participates in designing or refining the system, administers the assessment architecture, funds the resulting care and oversees reviews, independent scrutiny becomes critical.

The Murphy Campaign therefore calls for an independent technical, clinical and financial audit of the IAT classification algorithm.

That audit should examine:

The findings should be public.

More than 3,500 pages

Parliament has already pursued documentation concerning the IAT.

A preliminary search associated with a Senate order for production reportedly identified more than 3,500 pages potentially within scope.

That tells Australians something important:

There is an extensive documentary history behind this system.

We want the financial and governance components of that history brought into the sunlight.

This is about real people

An algorithm does not experience the consequences of getting a decision wrong.

Older Australians do.

Their husbands and wives do.

Their daughters and sons do.

Their carers do.

When an older Australian receives insufficient support, the consequences can include fewer hours of assistance, additional pressure on carers and families, and greater difficulty remaining safely and independently at home.

That is why this cannot become an argument conducted entirely between programmers, consultants and bureaucrats.

THE PERSON MUST REMAIN AT THE CENTRE OF THE DECISION.

The Murphy Campaign Demands

And if the Government's position remains that this system was not based on financial savings:

OPEN THE BOOKS AND PROVE IT.

We are not asking Australians to accept a conspiracy theory.

We are asking government to release the evidence.

Because an algorithm influencing the care of older Australians should never operate with:

PUBLIC CONSEQUENCES AND PRIVATE ARITHMETIC.

Sunlight. Evidence. Accountability. Action.

— The Murphy Campaign
Approved for Care. Waiting for Care.

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The Algorithm Must Answer to the Person

When an automated system influences an older Australian's care, Australians have a right to know how it works.

The Murphy Campaign is putting a new question to the Australian Government:

Who actually decides how much care an older Australian needs — the human assessor, or the algorithm?

Australia's aged-care assessment system uses the Integrated Assessment Tool and algorithm-supported classification to help determine Support at Home classifications.

Technology itself is not the enemy. Used properly, technology can improve consistency, speed and access.

But when an automated decision-making system materially influences the care available to an older Australian, secrecy, weak explainability and restricted human intervention become matters of public accountability.

Recent public reporting and expert analysis have raised disturbing questions about the system.

The Integrated Assessment Tool collects hundreds of pieces of information about an older person. Yet expert analysis reported by ABC Four Corners found that much of the information collected does not feed into the classification algorithm.

Assessors can also record extensive free-text information describing the human being sitting in front of them — their circumstances, risks and needs — yet that material is not necessarily read by the algorithm producing the classification.

That leads to an extraordinary question:

Why collect information about a human being if it cannot materially influence the machine assessing their level of support?

A single point can mean $40,000 a year

Professor Kathy Eagar's analysis reported that factors including cognition, frailty and mental health can enter the decision tree relatively late. At one point in that decision process, a difference of a single point can reportedly correspond with a difference approaching $40,000 a year in available funding.

Think about what that means.

Two older Australians can have complex and broadly similar lives, yet a seemingly small difference at a decision boundary may contribute to dramatically different funding outcomes.

And historically, an assessor who knows the person, sees their circumstances and believes the resulting classification does not adequately reflect their needs has faced constraints on simply overriding that outcome on the spot.

That is where technology stops being merely an administrative tool and becomes a question of power and accountability.

A machine-made shortfall becomes a "Heat or Eat" choice

A funding gap on a spreadsheet is an abstraction. A funding gap in an 85-year-old's fortnightly budget is not.

When an opaque, algorithm-driven classification under-funds an older Australian's actual level of need, that shortfall does not disappear. It is absorbed — by the person, by their family, or by their health.

It is absorbed by a pensioner turning off the heater on a cold night because home care hours were classified too low to cover both warmth and groceries. It is absorbed by a family member paying out of pocket for support the system decided wasn't needed. It is absorbed by an older Australian skipping a meal, or skipping medication, to make the fortnight stretch.

This is the "Heat or Eat" travesty — and an unaccountable algorithm is helping to manufacture it.

Older Australians on fixed incomes already ration heating, food and medical care against the cost of living. A classification system that quietly under-counts a person's real needs — because a free-text clinical note wasn't read by the algorithm, or because cognition and frailty entered the decision tree too late — does not just produce a wrong number. It pushes a real person closer to that impossible choice between heating their home and feeding themselves properly.

No government should be able to say a classification was "validated" while the human consequence of getting it wrong is an older Australian going without heat, without food, or without care. That is not an edge case. It is the predictable result of a black-box system making high-stakes decisions about people who are already living on the margin.

The machine doesn't have to be evil to be dangerous

The danger is not a computer sitting somewhere maliciously deciding to hurt older Australians.

The danger is much more mundane — and potentially much more powerful.

Responsibility can disappear into the system.

And the older Australian is left asking:

WHO ACTUALLY DECIDED HOW MUCH CARE I NEED?

That question must have an answer. A government should never be able to hide public responsibility behind technological complexity.

You cannot meaningfully challenge what you cannot understand

Review rights matter. But a person cannot effectively challenge a decision unless they can understand the material reasons the decision was made.

Which answers mattered? Which answers didn't? What threshold was crossed?

What evidence was disregarded by the automated process? Could the assessor intervene?

What version of the algorithm was used? Has that algorithm subsequently changed? How was it independently validated? How often are its classifications changed following human review?

These are not unreasonable demands. They are elementary requirements of accountable government.

SHOW US THE RULES.

The Murphy Campaign is calling for genuine sunlight over automated decision-making in aged care. We demand:

This is bigger than Sheila

The Murphy Campaign began with the lived experience of Sheila Murphy and one family's struggle through Australia's aged-care system. But Sheila's experience forces a much larger question.

Australia is building increasingly sophisticated systems to assess, classify and allocate public services. That may be inevitable. Unaccountable automated government is not.

If an algorithm influences whether an older Australian receives thousands of dollars more or less in support, Australians have a right to understand the basis of that outcome. If clinical information is collected but does not influence the classification, Australians deserve to know. If a human assessor cannot correct an outcome they believe is inappropriate, Australians deserve to know.

And if government believes its algorithm is fair, clinically valid and delivering better outcomes, then transparency should strengthen public confidence — not threaten it.

Put the algorithm in the sunlight.

The Senate Community Affairs References Committee is examining the Support at Home program, with its next public hearing scheduled for 22 September 2026 in Canberra. This is precisely the kind of question parliamentary scrutiny should examine.

The Murphy Campaign calls on Parliament, the Government, oversight agencies, aged-care advocates, clinicians, unions, researchers, journalists and older Australians themselves to demand answers.

Not rumours. Not conspiracy theories.

Evidence.

Because when government technology influences a person's care, the burden should never fall on an 85-year-old Australian to decipher the machine. The burden belongs to government to explain it.

THE ALGORITHM MUST ANSWER TO THE PERSON.

SHOW US THE RULES. · SHOW US WHAT COUNTS. · SHOW US THE HUMAN OVERRIDE.

SHOW US THE EXPLANATION. · SHOW US THE VERSION HISTORY. · SHOW US THE REVIEW DATA. · SHOW US THE VALIDATION.

Sunlight. Evidence. Accountability. Action.

— Murphy Campaign
Approved for Care. Waiting for Care.

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Read the full letter

They Expect Us to Give Up

Three battles. One system. Older Australians waiting for care. Experienced workers screened out because of age. An individual confronting a global technology corporation. The common strategy is delay, opacity and exhaustion. They expect us to give up. We will not.

Today is the point of inflection

I have spent thousands of dollars on lawyers and invested hundreds of hours documenting evidence, writing correspondence, pursuing officials, challenging institutions and refusing to accept carefully worded acknowledgements as action.

At times, it has felt like screaming into the wind.

But today is not the day we surrender. Today is the point of inflection.

Three fights that once appeared separate have revealed the same underlying problem: powerful systems can delay, obscure and exhaust an individual until that person runs out of time, money, opportunity or strength.

They expect us to give up.

We will not.

Battlefield one: approved for aged care, still waiting for care

The Murphy Campaign began with Sheila Murphy, now 85. Following serious health events, spinal surgery and changing care needs, her family has spent months pursuing reassessment, appropriate support and the delivery of actual care.

Sheila's experience is personal. The failure is national.

At 30 June 2026, 106,977 older Australians were recorded as waiting for an ongoing Support at Home place.

Older Australians do not experience waiting time as an administrative statistic. They experience another day without help showering, preparing food, moving safely, attending appointments or relieving an exhausted family carer.

At advanced age, six months is not an inconvenience. It is a significant part of somebody's remaining life.

Today's older Australians gave life to and raised the generations now governing this country. They worked, paid taxes, built institutions, cared for their own parents and created the communities and economy inherited by today's political leaders.

Without them, today's politicians would not be here—and they would not be in power.

Respect your parents. Honour the generation that raised you. Provide the care they need while they are still alive to receive it.

Battlefield two: Australia tells us to work longer—but will Australia hire us?

The second fight is age discrimination in recruitment.

Older Australians are told to remain productive, fund longer retirements and keep contributing. Yet experienced candidates repeatedly encounter recruitment processes that can reduce decades of achievement to appearance, assumptions about "energy" or "fit," and opaque automated screening.

The Show Us the Data campaign asks employers, recruiters and employment platforms to publish recruitment outcomes for candidates aged 55+, 60+ and 65+:

• ■ Applied
• ■ Shortlisted
• ■ Interviewed
• ■ Offered
• ■ Hired

Without transparent outcomes, assurances about diversity are public relations—not evidence.

Australia tells us to work longer. But will Australia hire us?

We are not asking for guaranteed jobs. We are demanding a fair opportunity to compete and the data needed to determine whether older candidates are being systematically excluded.

Battlefield three: the individual versus the corporate technology provider

The third fight concerns my dispute with a corporate technology provider.

I allege that platform, billing and access failures caused serious disruption, financial loss and damage to my ability to conduct business. The corporate technology provider disputes the claim. The matter is subject to legal proceedings and the allegations have not been determined by a court.

That legal distinction matters. So does the imbalance confronting an individual who challenges a global technology business.

An individual must preserve every email, reconcile every transaction, document every interruption, fund legal advice and continue meeting deadlines while the corporation has established systems, lawyers and resources.

This campaign will not misrepresent disputed allegations as proven facts. It will insist that the evidence be examined, the disputed conduct be answered and accountability not be defeated by cost or exhaustion.

One struggle, two manifestations

These are not identical cases, and their evidence must remain separate. But they expose a common method of institutional power:

1. Delay: Keep the person waiting until circumstances overtake them.
2. Opacity: Make the process too complicated to understand or challenge.
3. Fragmentation: Divide responsibility so nobody appears accountable.
4. Economic pressure: Make resistance expensive enough to discourage it.
5. Exhaustion: Rely on the person eventually stopping.

An older person waits for care.

An older worker waits for a fair opportunity.

In every case, the system benefits if the individual disappears quietly.

Strip away the forms, scripts, automated decisions and carefully managed acknowledgements, and the message received by too many older Australians is brutal:

"Just retire. Be quiet. Just die."

That is not our message. It is our indictment of a system that can treat an older person's remaining years, experience and dignity as expendable.

Our answer is equally direct:

"We will not retire from public life because you find our age inconvenient. We will not be quiet while people are denied care or opportunity. We will not disappear to make institutional failure easier to manage."

What we are demanding

For aged care

• Enforceable maximum waiting times.
• Immediate interim assistance when full care is delayed.
• Monthly reporting by electorate, priority and classification.
• Automatic reassessment after hospitalisation or serious deterioration.
• Named accountability when approved care is not delivered.

For recruitment

• Publication of outcomes for applicants aged 55+, 60+ and 65+.
• Auditing of automated screening for age-related bias.
• Capability-based assessment instead of appearance-based filtering.
• Accountability from employers, recruiters and employment platforms.

This is the point of inflection

We are no longer asking merely to be noticed.

We are documenting what happens. We are naming the responsible institutions. We are asking measurable questions. We are recording who answers, who refuses and who remains silent.

This is not a campaign against care workers, honest recruiters, responsible businesses or public servants trying to help. It is a campaign against systems that conceal outcomes and treat exhaustion as resolution.

To every politician, regulator, employer, recruiter, journalist and advocate:

Do not send another generic acknowledgement.

Answer the evidence.

State what you will do.

Accept accountability for the outcome.

They expect us to give up.

They are wrong.

— Stuart Le Gros
The Murphy Campaign | Show Us the Data

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Sheila Murphy's case is an individual experience that illustrates the human cost of systemic delay. It is presented separately from national statistics and independent analysis elsewhere on this site. See Evidence & Sources for the distinction.

View the Campaign Record See the Action Tracker Evidence & Sources

The Murphy Campaign is maintaining a transparent record of our attempts to reach Australia's elected representatives about the aged-care crisis.

Some parliamentary email addresses used in our national distribution have changed or returned delivery failures. That does not mean those representatives, our attempts to contact them, or the correspondence will be erased from the campaign record.

Where an address has changed, we will identify the current official parliamentary contact and resend the correspondence.

Where an elected representative has left office, the historical record will remain. We will separately identify and contact their successor when that person takes office.

We do not rewrite history because an email address changes.

Every approach, acknowledgement, response, referral, bounce and failure to respond forms part of the public record of this campaign.

The Murphy Campaign will continue documenting the answers — and the silence.

murphycampaign.au

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