Minister for Health and Aged Care, press conference – 10 December 2024

MATT SMITH, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR LEICHHARDT: Morning. My name is Matt Smith. I'm the ALP Candidate for the federal seat of Leichhardt. With me, I have the Honourable Mark Butler, Minister for Health, Senator Nita Green, and the crew of the RFDS here in Cairns. This is an incredibly exciting and important announcement. The Royal Flying Doctors Service is a part of the fabric of Australia. For over 90 years, it has provided help, reassurance and comfort to those in rural and remote Australia when they need it the most. The Royal Flying Doctors is an institution, and that is why I'm incredibly excited to be standing here today. If you think about Leichhardt as an electorate, a lot of it is regional, a lot of it is very remote. You'd be hard pressed not to find anybody who doesn’t have a feel-good story about the time they themselves, someone they know, someone they love, was in trouble and the RFDS was there. That's why this announcement today is bringing me great pleasure. I'll introduce now the Honourable Mark Butler, Health Minister, he'll take it from here.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE: Matt, thank you for welcoming me to Cairns. I can't tell you how excited the Labor family across Australia is that you agreed to stick your hand up and run for parliament at the election that is due in the next few months. We’re enormously hopefully you'll be able to join the Labor team down in Canberra, because we know you will be an absolutely terrific representative of this beautiful community in Cairns and surrounding regions. I'm also delighted to be here with Senator Nita Green, who has been holding up the Labor tradition here in Cairns, just waiting for a candidate like Matt Smith to be elected here. She's a great pleasure to work with, whether it's here or down in Canberra, doing incredibly important work in the Senate.
 
Most importantly, though, I'm so delighted to be here with the RFDS team in Cairns. As Matt said, this is an icon – a word that sometimes a bit overused – but this genuinely is an icon for the Australian community. The tyranny of distance, again, is a phrase that we sometimes overuse. But when you are suffering a health emergency and you don't live in a big city like Cairns or any of the other big cities down south, the tyranny of distance can mean the difference between life and death. For almost 100 years, the RFDS has been closing that tyranny of distance through thousands and thousands of aeromedical evacuations in planes like the ones we see behind us. That is well understood and deeply appreciated by the Australian community. I think what is a little less understood is the enormous work that the Flying Doctors do to deliver basic primary care in remote locations around the country: basic primary care, mental health support, dental care, telehealth, a range of things that try to make sure that Australians, no matter where they live in this country, are able to enjoy good health. I want to thank the doctors, the nurses, the maintenance engineers, everyone at this team here at Cairns, that make sure that enormous tradition of RFDS is able to continue well into the future.
 
We currently have a 10-year agreement with the Royal Flying Doctors Service. That is highly unusual for the Australian Government to enter into an agreement that long. Usually, we review agreements on a more regular basis to ensure we're getting value for taxpayer money. But such is the level of confidence that the Australian Government, of any political persuasion, has in this institution, that we were willing to sign a 10-year agreement and give that funding certainty of around a billion dollars to RFDS to be able to continue the work that they do right across the country. This year, we've had to top up that funding with an announcement of another $75 million to deal with the cost escalation that RFDS is facing, along with health providers right across the country. This practice, if I can call it that, unlike most physical general practices and hospitals, faces big fuel bills and has been impacted by the global spike in energy prices that impacts fuel prices as well. We've come to the party and ensured that extra money to RFDS is able to ensure that they continue this just extraordinarily important work that they do.
 
More broadly, though, can I just say I'm really delighted to be here in Cairns and spend some time with Matt and Nita, getting around and talking to healthcare providers, particularly, about all that we've been doing to strengthen Medicare. The changes we've put in place since we were elected a little more than 2 years ago have delivered more doctors to this region, more bulk billing to this region, an Urgent Care Clinic that's already seen 15,000 people from Cairns and the surrounding areas – all free of charge – ensuring they don't have to go to a hospital emergency department, and we've delivered cheaper medicines as well. All of these things are making a real difference to this region and regions right across the country. But we know it is still tough to access high-quality, affordable healthcare right across the country, after a decade of cuts and neglect, after the impact of the COVID pandemic. I'm up here to talk with Matt and Nita and people in this region about what else we can do, because we know there's more to do to keep strengthening Medicare and to deliver even cheaper medicines. But we also know that all of this is under threat from a Dutton-led government, given the form he has as the health minister who tried to abolish bulk billing, tried to make everyone pay a fee to go into a hospital emergency department and tried to cut $50 billion from hospitals. So thank you very much to Matt and Nita for welcoming me here. Particular thanks to RFDS for the incredible work that they do. Good time to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: The additional $75 million what exactly is that going towards?
 
BUTLER: That ultimately will be up to RFDS, but it deals with, as I said, increased costs of delivering the services that are so important for regional and rural and remote Australia in particular. Some of that is as basic as fuel costs, but a range of other things. RFDS came to us, made the case that in order to keep that level of service going they needed some extra investment from taxpayers. I was really pleased we're able to deliver that in the 2024 Budget.
 
JOURNALIST: Can you see this funding renewing in future?
 
BUTLER: Of course, RFDS is not going anywhere, and neither is the Australian Government support for RFDS. We have that 10-year agreement. It gives funding certainty to the Royal Flying Doctors Service. But we know that things will intervene and cause us to have to have another discussion about ways in which we can ensure they keep that level of service going.
 
JOURNALIST: Should we have been building more healthcare centres in remote communities so the communities stop having the need for RFDS?
 
BUTLER: RFDS is doing some really innovative work to close that tyranny of distance I talked about. Some of that is using technology like telehealth in the Far North of South Australia, for example. They’ve opened a clinic that people are able to go into themselves, click on a virtual video link with a doctor in Adelaide, and go through a range of things with a whole lot of equipment available to them, if they're suffering a particularly severe health emergency, while a plane is sent to evacuate them. One of the great things I love about RFDS is their level of innovation. They are constantly pushing the envelope to find new ways of exploiting technology to be able to close that tyranny of distance.
 
JOURNALIST: Could increased government funding lead to a lack of sympathy from the public when it comes to voluntary donations?
 
BUTLER: No, I think the great thing about this organisation, but so many others besides, in Australia is that people recognise that taxpayer investment leverages donations of philanthropic investment, and it works the other way as well. I know as health minister that when I see an organisation that attracts strong philanthropic support, that gives me greater confidence that this is an organisation worth investing in on behalf of taxpayers. I don't think you've ever seen in Australia a sense that this is a zero-sum game. There's a great tradition in this country of taxpayer investment, leveraging more donations, and more donations leveraging greater taxpayer confidence.
 
JOURNALIST: There’s a big gap at the moment, 2.8 times more likely for people in remote areas than in major cities to be hospitalised for potentially preventable conditions. Are you seeing that gap close? And what would you like to ultimately get to – I mean zero – but what are you doing so it’s closed?
 
BUTLER: Yeah, this is a really important report from RFDS that just draws attention to the ongoing gaps in healthcare outcomes and life expectancy that runs to many years, between Australians particularly living in the most remote parts of our country, compared to Australians living in the city. That tyranny of distance, by no means has been closed, and there is always more work than we need to do. Not just evacuating people when they suffer a health emergency, but getting out into the community as RFDS does, and encouraging healthy behaviours and just abiding by that old truism that prevention is much better than cure.
 
DOCTOR JOHN O’DONNELL, CHAIR OF THE ROYAL FLYING DOCTORS SERVICE FEDERATION: I'd like to welcome the Minister here today and to thank him for signing this important partnership agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and the Royal Flying Doctor Service Federation of Australia. RFDS is really well known for aeromedical services and emergency services in rural and remote areas, but less well known for all the primary care work that we do in general practice, nursing clinics, mental health clinics, dental services, mental health services throughout the country. There's huge opportunity for us to do much more in those primary care spaces to improve the health of people who live and work in rural and remote areas in Australia, and to prevent some of those emergencies from occurring. There's more that we can do, and this partnership agreement sets the foundation for us to work with the Commonwealth to deliver far broader scope of services to the bush and to improve primary health care services in particular. We look forward to working with the Commonwealth Government to expand those services in the near future.
 
JOURNALIST: Can you talk, from an RFDS perspective, how that additional $75 million will be used in the long term to providing aeromedical services?
 
DR O’DONNELL: Yeah, the $75 million which the Commonwealth kindly gave us in the last Budget, really makes up for the cost-of-living increases over the last 12 months or so. Cost of aviation fuel, the cost of wages, and also extending some services to other communities, obviously comes at a cost. And we're very grateful to the government for giving us the opportunity to continue our existing services and to extend them when we can.
 
JOURNALIST: Have you seen demand rise a lot considering how many people are living remote and regional and rural areas across Australia?
 
DR O’DONNELL: Yeah. The Best for the Bush report, which is published by RFDS every year, shows that there's a substantial disparity between the health care of people in the bush, compared to those of us who live in urban areas. We'd like to do a lot more to bridge that gap, to provide more primary care services, to make sure that the preventative services are there. It's much better to control someone's blood pressure, than to deal with their stroke years later and have to fly them out to a tertiary centre. It's a simple but obvious example, but one of many.
 
JOURNALIST: What more do you need? What do you want for Christmas?
 
DR O’DONNELL: What I'd like for Christmas? Well, we're going to give the Minister a brief about that next week, so it's a bit awkward of me to pre-empt that right this minute.
 
JOURNALIST: Perfect timing?
 
DR O’DONNELL: Perfect timing. All right. Well, the RFDS will be seeking $300 million over 5 years to improve primary health care services throughout rural and remote Australia, across the board. That's Western Australia to the east coast.
 
JOURNALIST: Can you talk more about the importance of the RFDS? How important these services are that you do daily to support people living in rural and remote areas?
 
DR O’DONNELL: We're in Cairns today, as you know, and this is probably a good example, because the services provided from Cairns base to Cape York is a great example of the work that we can do and could do more so in the rest of Australia. So Cairns supports a lot of primary health care clinics in the Cape, in conjunction with local communities and local-based health services. We provide mental health services, dental health services, general practice, and a substantial amount of access to health care through telehealth, tele-psychiatry, tele-mental health facilities. That's a service that we could do nationally and consistently, rather than piece by piece around the country, as the opportunity presents.
 
JOURNALIST: Should the Prime Minister stand in front of all three flags, or just the Australian glag?
 
BUTLER: Our country has a national flag, but for decades we've also had two official flags that reflect the fact that we share this wonderful continent with the oldest continuously surviving cultures on the face of the planet. The Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag reflects that. This has been a pretty standard position now for decades and the Prime Minister reflects that, as do I, when I get the chance.
 
JOURNALIST: The PM is expected to visit the synagogue today, should he have gone to Melbourne sooner?
 
BUTLER: The Prime Minister has been busy with the job of Prime Minister. He was meeting with security agencies yesterday in Canberra, announced the fact that we've put in place an anti-Semitism taskforce that brings together the Federal Police, all of the security agencies, including obviously ASIO. On the weekend, he was in Western Australia, visited a synagogue. It was the Sabbath, or Shabbat, at the time, so obviously media were not invited into that. He did a range of other events in Perth on that day. I know, for the health portfolio, he opened a really important centre to support the perinatal mental health of mothers and fathers as well. He's been working hard, constantly staying in touch, though, with the Federal Police and other security agencies since this awful, hateful, anti-Semitic attack happened on the synagogue in Melbourne.
 
JOURNALIST: Is the PMs handling of the crisis issues hurting the government?
 
BUTLER: The Prime Minister has been handling this in the deliberate way that I think the Australian people, would expect. Constantly in touch with our security agencies and the Federal Police, working with the Victorians to get to a position we arrived at yesterday, that this was declared an act of terrorism, a declaration I personally welcome very, very deeply. So that the policing agencies of Victoria and the security agencies of the Commonwealth can marshal their resources to bring those predators to justice. And that is something we hope happens sooner rather than later.
 
And more broadly, I think it is time that we have a task force into antisemitism. The rise in antisemitism since 7th October last year has been deeply shocking and frankly appalling, and it's been a particular focus on Jewish Australians. Those are the only Australians who are taking their kids to schools locked behind high fences with barbed wire security guards and police. I know in my portfolio, Jewish nursing homes are having to engage security guards because of the physical threats against people in their final weeks or months of life, some of whom survived the Holocaust. This has got to stop. This is a stain on the country, and the decision to put in place the taskforce yesterday, I think, is an entirely appropriate one.
 
JOURNALIST: Is it time for a comprehensive national inquiry into drink spiking? It's been 20 years since the last one. We didn't get enough data the last time.
 
BUTLER: I engage, obviously, as the Health Minister, very closely with the alcohol industry, but also groups that are focused on reducing alcohol related harms, they've not put that proposal to me. I'm engaging with them on a range of other harms that they're very focused on. For example, the delivery or Uberisation of alcohol delivery is creating real harms. I know that's something the National Cabinet has recognised and asked jurisdictions to do some work on. I've not had a proposal from that part of the sector to do that. Obviously, if I had that proposal in front of me, I'd consider it.
 
JOURNALIST: Cairns Regional Council looks like it's about to vote down fluoridation in the water. What do you think that might cause the community going forward?
 
BUTLER: Look, as the Health Minister, I'm a big supporter of fluoridation of water. This is not a decision that lies in my hands, it's a matter for state governments. I know here in Queensland, the Newman Government delegated that decision-making power to local councils. And a number of them, this one included, decided to take fluoride out of water. I think that's to the detriment of the oral health, particularly of children. Good oral health, formed early in life, is going to serve you very well for the rest of your life. But ultimately, that is a matter for the Cairns Council. My vote, if I had one, would be in favour of putting fluoride back into water, but I don't have a vote.
 
JOURNALIST: And how do you feel about the Queensland Government's policy on the matter, on letting councils make the decision?
 
BUTLER: That's a matter for state governments, frankly. I'm not about to interfere in in the degree to which state governments delegate powers to the local council. I would just encourage all levels of government, whoever has their hand on the lever, to seek the best possible advice. And we've got very clear advice, that's been reinforced time and time again by our highest health experts, including the National Health and Medical Research Council, that fluoride in water is not harmful, but actually is a positive benefit to people's oral health, particularly the oral health of children. And I've seen reports about the declining oral health of children in this region, which local GPs are putting down to the lack of fluoride in water. I would encourage the Cairns Council to take those reports seriously.
 
JOURNALIST: I've just got a question for Nita. Obviously, we saw the second fatality on the Bruce Highway in 2 weeks up here in Cairns. Now we have councils up here calling on the federal government to help fund and rebuild that road. I guess what's your opinion on that?
 
SENATOR NITA GREEN: Any death on our roads is a tragic one. And we have a family in our community right now who's lost someone that they love in the lead up to Christmas. So my first thoughts are really with that family and with that community. On the Bruce Highway and our commitment to fund it and work with the state government, the Albanese Labor Government has delivered $10 billion worth of investment into the Bruce Highway. And that included, in our last Budget, up to $500 million of extra investment so that the state government could carry out works all the way from Caloundra to Cairns to ensure that the Bruce Highway is safe. Now we want to work with the state government on getting that money out the door. We want to make sure that that those works are happening, and we'll continue to work with the state government to ensure that that money is spent. There's $10 billion from our government and we want to ensure that all goes into the Bruce as quickly as possible. And we'll do that in conjunction with the state government. If there's further requests for funding from the state government, of course, we will work with them. But we will do that because our Government is committed to Queensland and committed to investing in Queensland, while also making sure that we taking pressure off the cost of living, that is our number one focus as a government.
 
Now, I've seen comments from Peter Dutton and others in the Liberal Party about investing in the Bruce. But at the same time, they're calling for our government to spend less money. They want to cut $315 billion worth of funding that this government has delivered to communities all across Queensland. So at the same time, they're calling for us to cut spending, but they're saying that they will invest in the Bruce. The two things don't add up. He has never supported our cost-of-living measures that are supporting Queenslanders right now. He has voted against every single cost-of-living measure in parliament. So the real question is: why is Peter Dutton calling for future investment while also telling Queenslanders that he will cut funding at the next election?
 
JOURNALIST: The Greens want to commit $4 billion dollars to the Reef. And they're saying the federal government is – that $1 billion is nowhere near enough. Pretty much all of the investment would be double under the Greens. And they're saying under the federal government, it is – they're just saying yes to coal, new coal mines, and that's ultimately what's hurting the Reef.
 
GREEN: Our government has a really firm policy on climate action. We have legislated our targets to achieve net zero. We have a 2030 target that we are going to reach, when it comes to emissions reduction. We are making sure that we are taking action on climate change as a party of government. That is something that the Greens Party are unable to do and never will do. Now our government is committed to protecting the Reef. And that's why we're investing $1.2 billion to improve water quality, to ensure that we have a net-free reef by 2027, and to make sure that we're investing in the reef science that we need for reef adaptation and resilience right now. The impact of these policies will mean that the Reef is protected for generations to come. We also know that the Reef is challenged by climate change. And so the Greens Party can talk about what they might do if they win government, but they will not. So the question really for voters is about what Peter Dutton might do if he is elected at the next election. He has a climate policy that means scrapping the targets that protect the Great Barrier Reef, introducing nuclear power that will cost Queenslanders money, that will delay targets and climate actions and will only deliver 4% of electricity required by 2040. There is no realistic climate change policy from Peter Dutton and the Liberals at the next election. And so when it comes to the policy on the Reef, our Government is committed, and we're the only ones capable of delivering climate action and reef protection. And I'm very proud of my legacy in this space.