Minister Butler press conference, Adelaide – 4 December 2025

MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thank you everyone for coming out this morning to the Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide’s southern suburbs. I'm joined today by Rohan Greenland, who is the Director of MS Australia; by Dr Lesley-Ann Hall, who is a consultant neurologist here at Flinders; and by one of her patients, you might recognise her from My Kitchen Rules, Ash Irwin, who is a patient living with MS.
 
I'm here to make an incredibly exciting announcement about new treatments for this autoimmune condition that affects, according to data released by MS Australia only yesterday, as many as 38,000 Australians. This is a really complicated condition. It impacts Australians usually in young adulthood. Ash will talk about her age of diagnosis, which is quite typical in the early 30s. About three-quarters of Australians living with MS are women, so it impacts more women than men. It also impacts different geographical communities quite differently. The prevalence in Tasmania, being further away from the equator, is about twice the prevalence see in one of our northern jurisdictions like Queensland.
 
The really confronting thing about this condition, which I'm sure Rohan will talk about, is that the incidence of MS in Australia and around the world is rising very sharply. In just 15 years, the number of Australians living with MS has increased by more than three quarters. When you account for population growth, the prevalence per head of population has increased by about a half in just 15 years. Rohan might talk about some of the reasons for that, or Dr Hall as well. We know that vitamin D appears to be a factor in MS, which is why the further away you are from the equator, the more likely you are to have this condition. But also, changes in lifestyle that we've seen over the last couple of decades could well be contributing to a significant increase in prevalence. There is also some research indicating that overweight and obesity in adolescents is also a risk factor in this condition as well.
 
But the terrific news, and has been good news for a few decades now, is that there are great disease-modifying therapies to support Australians living with MS. OCREVUS is one of those that particularly supports Australians living with relapsing and remitting MS, which is about 85 per cent of the MS population. This has for some years been administered through infusion, which takes several hours, effectively takes a full day for patients, and has a significant impact obviously on health services like Flinders here in Adelaide's southern suburbs. But today, I'm announcing that from 1 December, a new version of OCREVUS, this disease-modifying therapy, will be available on the PBS in subcutaneous injection form. Much easier, much quicker to administer, taking only a matter of minutes rather than several hours every day. That'll be a terrific thing for health services, but much more importantly, it'll be so much more convenient and less impactful for patients like Ash here who has been receiving OCREVUS through intravenous infusion. Before this month, that would have cost about $16,500 for a course of treatment, but now it is on the PBS, it will be available at cheap PBS prices, which as people know are going to become even cheaper on 1 January. That is the beauty of our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. It allows Australians access to the best medicines available anywhere in the world at affordable PBS prices.
 
I'm delighted to make this announcement today. It's one of more than 350 additions or expansions that we've made to the PBS since we were elected to Government, because cheaper medicines are not just good for people's household budget, at a very real cost of living pressure. As today's announcement shows, it's also very good for their health.
 
I'll hand over to Rohan now.
 
ROHAN GREENLAND, MS AUSTRALIA DIRECTOR: Thank you Minister. Today really is an early Christmas present for thousands people living with multiple sclerosis in Australia. To have this medication available as an injection instead of a full-day infusion is going to be life-changing for many people. I was talking to a patient from Tasmania yesterday, and she is working, she has to manage her multiple sclerosis, and she had to take a whole day out. She has young kids as well, so to take a whole day out of her life to have these infusions is a big undertaking. And to have it available as an injectable format is going to be really a major improvement.
 
The Minister said we've got rapidly escalating prevalence of multiple sclerosis in Australia. We released new figures yesterday. There's some almost 38,000 people in Australia now living with multiple sclerosis. It's really important that we have access to a full suite of disease-modifying therapies to stay on top of this problem. In fact, the policy settings that this Government has in place really places Australia as a world leader in access to high-efficacy disease-modifying therapies. Because we are getting access to those really effective treatments, it means that the amount of disability associated with MS is in decline despite increasing prevalence. Investment in the PBS has benefits on the NDIS. One in three people with MS are still on the NDIS, but over time, as we have access to improved treatments and improved care of people who have MS, that will decline.
 
We're very grateful, Minister, for the policy settings that this and previous governments have put in place. Australia and Sweden are often cited as the world leaders in ensuring access to the full suite of affordable, accessible disease-modifying therapies, and that's improving the lives of people living with MS day in, day out. A very big thank you to the Minister and the Government. And as I say, it's an early Christmas present for thousands of people living with multiple sclerosis in Australia.
 
DR LESLEY-ANN HALL, CONSULTANT NEUROLOGIST, FLINDERS MEDICAL CENTRE: Thank you so very much, Minister and to Rohan, for explaining that. My name's Lesley-Ann. I'm one of the neurologists working within the Multiple Sclerosis Clinic here at Flinders Medical Centre. Together with my colleagues, we care for and look after and help guide and support patients who are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which, as you can imagine, can be an exceptionally frightening diagnosis, particularly as a lot of the patients that we see walking through our doors are young. They're in the prime of their lives and they're suddenly being faced with a lifelong condition.
 
We see still, unfortunately, the legacy of what happens with multiple sclerosis when we don't treat it. It really has only been over the last 30 years that we have seen an immense explosion of treatments that are available to patients that help reduce the risk of more inflammatory relapses, and here in Australia I think we are so well placed with having the majority of these treatments being available to offer to our patients. Because treatments are not necessarily a one size fits all. What works for one person may not necessarily work for another, both in terms of the effectiveness, but how they tolerate it, the side effects that they may experience from it, how it fits into their life in terms of their jobs, their work, family planning. All of these considerations are things that we take into account when we're sitting with a patient and talking through which treatments they should be considering.
 
As Rohan was saying, we are so lucky that here in Australia we can sit down and offer patients, first up, high-efficacy therapies that we know are exceptionally effective at reducing their risk of having more inflammation in the future. And we can offer those first line, as opposed to many other countries in the world where you have to wait to fail a lesser effective therapy before being able to access these particular things.
 
With the inclusion of the subcutaneous form, as we were saying, it means that rather than coming and sitting in an infusion suite for six hours at a time, strapped up to an infusion, taking up a place in a public hospital, these patients are now going to be able to come for their injection over the course of ten minutes on their way to or from work, to or from picking up the kids. No longer are they going to have to take a day of annual leave to come to their infusion. It also means that we are bringing up the resources within the public hospital system, within our infusion suite. We’re freeing up the nursing staff that's allocated to those resources so that other patients, not just neurology patients, but across multiple disciplinaries are able to come and access infusion therapies in time demands. So this is a good inclusion all around. We are immensely grateful for the support from the PBS to be able to offer and sit down with our patients and include this as an option.
 
I'd like to introduce Ms. Ashley Irwin who I'm hoping will share a bit of her own experience but also how this announcement will impact her.
 
ASH IRWIN, MS PATIENT: Thanks Dr Hall. My name's Ash. I was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis when I was 31 years old. At the time I had a 10-month-old daughter, and I was navigating returning to work after being on maternity leave, being a new mother and also having a chronic condition to manage. It was a lot on my plate at once. Now, at the time I couldn't manage to do buttons on baby clothes, I couldn't scratch an itch, I couldn't feel my husband's arms around me at night and I couldn't cook which is something that I love doing. I couldn't do usual tasks that I'd previously taken for granted.
 
I remember sitting down with my neurology team, Dr Hall, and my fantastic nurse Sharon and we came up with a really collaborative plan and discussed many treatment options and I started my OCREVUS infusion within two weeks. Now, fast forward two years and my disease is stable with no new disease progression or any new activity on my MRI scan, which I have every six to 12 months.
 
And you know, I'm a busy working mum. I work four days a week as a clinical dietitian. I also have my own private practice as a dietitian as well, where I help women who have walked a similar path. When I'm not working, I'm running around after a very energetic toddler. So, life is crazy, and my infusion days are long. It often involves me driving to an infusion centre and sitting in a chair for six and then driving home. I often have to coordinate managing day care for my daughter or taking a day off of work on sick leave. Having a subcutaneous infusion that I can have within 10 minutes before work would absolutely revolutionise treatment for so many people like me with relapsing-remitting MS, and I'm really excited that this is covered under PBS. Thank you.
 
 
JOURNALIST: So the SA&NT non-profit of the MS has gone into voluntary administration. A lot of people saying that was giving them some uncertainty and some concern in this time. How good does it feel for you to know that the Government is backing you and other people who are suffering?
 
IRWIN:  With the merger of the SA and WA MS societies, I do feel really supported with that community as well, but it does make me feel really- it is really reassuring and positive that the Government is backing this on the PBS to provide people like myself with a treatment. I'm really grateful.
 
JOURNALIST: You touched on it briefly but this 10-minute injection, it will give you more time with your daughter and going to do more special things.
 
IRWIN:  Yes, absolutely. So having a 10-minute subcutaneous injection, which I could have before work or coming in with my daughter quickly. And to have it in 10 minutes would be amazing because I know at the moment I'm not able to take my daughter down. She would not sit still for six hours. This would provide me more time to be able to spend time with my family and I wouldn't have to take a day off of work and sick leave or manage my private times around my infusions.
 
JOURNALIST:  A lot of episodes of Bluey.
 
IRWIN: A lot of episodes of Bluey, yeah. She did alright on the plane though.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, just on the Health Department yesterday said that they didn’t have the numbers or couldn’t share the numbers on how many older Australians were in hospitals but were ready to be released. Do you have that number?
 
BUTLER: Well, we’ve been asking all the state and territory jurisdictions for clear data on people who they say are medically able to be discharged and what the different status of those patients are. For example, which of them are ready to go into a home care package, which might be ready to go to residential aged care. And frankly, the detail of that data which have been provided by jurisdictions, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
 
We’ve been very keen to get it. We’ve been engaging constructively with all state governments about this challenging issue now for a considerable period of time. We’ve put investment on the table to help with programs including here in South Australia that assist with that patient flow, either trying to divert older patients from hospital in the first place, or if they are here, find ways to move them out as quickly as is medically appropriate.
 
I opened, for example, a specialist dementia care centre in the North-East suburbs only a couple of weeks ago here in Adelaide that will be able to take patients with high-level dementia needs who are currently often stuck in hospitals. We're working constructively on that, but we have been saying to jurisdictions for some time, to craft a good solution, we need access to the data and our ability to get that has varied across some jurisdictions.
 
JOURNALIST:  Is there a federal number that exists at the moment of how many older Australians could be out of hospitals?
 
BUTLER: We can add up the numbers that state governments are putting into the media relatively easy, but we've asked for a little bit more detail than that about the nature of each of those patients. How many, for example, might have level 6 or level 7 dementia, which means a particular response compared to people who would be able to go into a relatively standard residential aged care offering if that was available. That's the sort of data the Department is talking about in the Senate yesterday.
 
JOURNALIST:  Should the Federal Government be keeping track of that sort of crucial information, particularly as you said there's a bit of a stalemate at the moment with the state and federal governments over hospitals and these beds?
 
BUTLER: We would like access to that data but it's not our data. It's data held by state and territory government hospital systems, which is what we've been asking for for some time now. Most state governments have been very forthcoming in that, but as I've said, we've wanted a level of granularity about the breakup of those patients, their particular needs, to assist us in constructing a proper response to this.
 
JOURNALIST: If I can, just on the proton therapy here in Adelaide, we had a story yesterday about how obviously there's been a breakdown in that contract, but they are hoping the proton company to revive that contract. Do you think there’s any chance of that?
 
BUTLER:  The advice I've got is there's no realistic prospect of that being revived. There are a range of pretty fundamental problems with that contract and the ability of a company like that to deliver a product like that in South Australia. The advice I've received both from my own department but also in consultation with the South Australian Government is that really the prospects of that delivering a service to Australia are gone, and really what we responsibly need to do is find a viable alternative.
 
JOURNALIST: Are you confident then that Adelaide will have that first proton unit in Australia?
 
BUTLER: As I've said before, given the level of capital, physical capital and importantly human capital that has been sunk here in South Australia, I thought it was important to give South Australia an opportunity to demonstrate if they had a viable alternative to the proton contract. But at some point, we'll have to ask other jurisdictions whether they have a proposal as well. What is clear is that wherever this proton therapy unit is located, it will be a national capability. Very clear advice that I've received from Cancer Australia is that the demand projections over the next several years would only really require one unit in the whole country. Now, whether that's in Adelaide or Sydney or somewhere else, patients, particularly paediatric patients with cancer from the entire country would fly to receive therapy at wherever that was.
 
There's a lot of sunk capital here in South Australia. If there's able to be a viable alternative here, that'll probably be delivered more quickly. But I think at some point we are obviously going to talk to other jurisdictions about whether they have alternative proposals.
 
JOURNALIST: When do you think that point is? We've been waiting a while now.
 
BUTLER: It's getting pretty close. I don't want to put a date on it, but it's getting pretty close. Because I know clinicians, a range of others, but most importantly, parents and patients are understandably getting frustrated at the lack of progress here because this contract collapsed.
 
JOURNALIST: Has the Government engaged with the Peter MacCallum Centre at all? Are they genuinely interested in hosting?
 
BUTLER: I haven't myself, but I understand that Peter MacCallum has developed a proposal. It's quite a different type of proposal, I understand. I've asked for some advice about that. There may be other proposals around the country as well that would be worth considering. The former Government, sunk very substantial taxpayer funds to the tune of about $68 million for the purchase of the proton therapy unit that would be located on North Terrace, other funds sunk by the South Australian Government or by the former South Australian Government.
 
We have to go through a proper process as governments given the amount of taxpayer funds that has been sunk without a result, to work out a viable path forward. All of the advice I get is this is an important national capability for us to have at the moment, particularly children with cancers that might be treatable with proton therapy units. They're having to be supported in many cases, usually to America, and receive that therapy there. We want to have them receiving therapy in Australia.
 
JOURNALIST:  You said we're getting very close to that point. How quickly do you want to see action?
 
BUTLER: I'm not going to put a date on it. It does require engagement with other levels of government. But I think we're getting very close to the point of having to start to chart a path forward.
 
JOURNALIST: Apologies. Can I get Ash for one more question? Is that all right?
 
JOURNALIST:  Just in terms of that cost factor for you, I know you touched on it briefly, but how big of a difference is that going to make in your life as well?
 
IRWIN: Yeah, absolutely. I was receiving OCREVUS infusions as well, which were obviously on PBS. So very grateful because with the cost-of-living phenomenon as well, I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling the pinch as a working mum with a young family so very grateful that the Government is going to subsidise it.