Press conference with Minister Butler, Adelaide – 26 June 2025

MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thanks for coming to Benson, and thanks to Benson for hosting us this morning at a really exciting announcement in the fight against lung cancer. I'm really pleased to be joined by Dorothy who runs Cancer Australia and who’ll be talking through some of the technical details of this program. Mark Brooke from the Lung Foundation, which has lobbied so hard for better support and care for people with lung conditions generally, but lung cancer in particular. And Naomi, who's going to talk to us about this program from a patient perspective.
 
Lung cancer is still the biggest killer of Australians of all cancers. It kills about 9,000 Australians every single year or around one Australian every single hour of every single day. One of the key reasons for that stubbornly high mortality rate is the late detection of lung cancers. Usually, they're only picked up at quite a late stage in the cancer, making them very, very hard to treat and making survivability much lower than some of the other cancers where we're seeing survivability increase quite dramatically.
 
Mark's organisation, the Lung Foundation, and many other stakeholders besides have been lobbying and arguing the case for some time now for a screening program that would increase the early detection of these cancers. Because we know if we pick them up early, they're much easier to and patients are much, much more likely to go on to survive and to live many, many years beyond.
 
I'm really pleased today to announce that, from next week, on 1 July, Australia will become one of the first countries in the world to roll out a National Lung Cancer Screening Program. This is the first new cancer screening program in Australia for about 20 years. It's added now to the very successful world-leading cancer screening programs we have for breast, bowel, and cervical cancer. This lung cancer screening program will be targeted at Australians aged between 50 and 70 with a significant smoking history. It will entitle them to a CT scan every two years, designed to pick up any early evidence of lung cancer and allow them then to be treated hopefully very, very successfully.
 
We know that Australians living outside of our major cities are overrepresented in that target population, that target population of 50 to 70 with a significant smoking history. In addition to rolling this program out nationally in the usual way and allowing people to go to their doctor and get referred for a CT scan at a place like Benson here, we'll also, from later this year, be rolling out trucks into regional communities with cutting-edge mobile CT technology to ensure that every single Australian, no matter where they live in the country, has access to this world-leading program.
 
I want to thank Mark and his organisation for their relentless advocacy on behalf of patients at risk of lung cancer right across the country for years now, and for his patients and for the forcefulness of their advocacy. I want to thank Dorothy for the leadership that Cancer Australia has shown in preparing and presenting this case to the Medical Services Advisory Committee, MSAC, which, essentially, frames the advice for the Medicare Benefit Schedule. And as a result of their work together, and the work of a number of other stakeholders like NACCHO, the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, who care for a population, again, vastly overrepresented at lung cancer risk, other stakeholders, many of them working in state and territory jurisdictions and they've come together to present that case to the Commonwealth. We responded to that argument with $263 million invested in the 2023 Budget.
 
I'm delighted that Australia is able to build on its world-leading reputation in cancer screening and present a whole lot of new opportunities for people at risk of lung cancer to get early detection, early treatment, and survive that diagnosis. We're working hard, largely through the work of Mark and Dorothy, to educate GPs and other frontline health professionals about this new program to ensure that they're equipped to have that discussion with their patients who they know might fall within the eligibility population. I'll say to those GPs have that conversation with your patients, but I also say to people who might be in that target population age between 50 and 70 with a significant smoking history take up this opportunity. It's completely free of charge, and it might well save your life. I'll hand now to Dorothy to talk about the technical elements of this program.
 
DOROTHY KEEFE, CEO, CANCER AUSTRALIA: Thank you, Minister. I'm Dorothy Keefe. I'm the CEO of Cancer Australia. I would like to say how delighted I am that we are now launching this amazing public health initiative with the Lung Cancer Screening Program. I'm very proud of the collaboration across the whole sector, from the patients and the advocates through to the clinicians, the researchers, and the Government, for putting this together.
 
As the Minister said, it's the first new screening program for 20 years, and so we've been able to take advantage of the advances in technology over that time. The low-dose CT scan that people have will have a much lower dose of radiation than CT’s used to have and therefore less adverse potential from it.
 
When I was a junior doctor my very first job was as a houseman, we were called then in England, but an intern on a respiratory unit. And we used to see a large number of people in their middle age to late middle age coming in with problems breathing or coughing up blood or losing weight, and they would have a diagnosis of lung cancer. And I remember my first consultant, Dr Ian Coutts, was a very, very gentle man and he would sit on their beds and he would hold their hands and he would tell them that he was very sorry but there was nothing that could be done. For that reason, it is really important, if for no other, that these people shouldn't have died and every one of them was a person with a family and a life and a reason to keep living, and today if people have a smoking history, not through their own fault, obviously, because the tobacco industry does a lot to encourage people to smoke and smoking is addictive, but those people now can have a scan early on when they have no symptoms at all and find those cancers at a time when they're treatable.
 
The reason they're not treatable, usually because they're found late, is because the lungs are so big you don't know they're there. They're growing with no symptoms for a long time, and by the time they're symptomatic it's too late. We're encouraging everybody who's eligible to go along and have this low dose CT scan. We'll have a scan every two years. If we find something on the scan there will be a different frequency. You might have to come back in three months or six months or 12 months just to check what's happening in the lungs, and if it's anything suspicious you'll be referred to a specialist linked to a multidisciplinary team where a diagnostic workup will be done. Mostly you won't have lung cancer, but if you do have lung cancer, it will have been found earlier than it would otherwise and you'll be able to undergo what is now world-class treatment and potentially cure. We're very, very keen for everyone who's possibly eligible to present for scans. Thank you.
 
MARK BROOKE, CEO OF LUNG FOUNDATION AUSTRALIA: Good morning, my name is Mark Brooke. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Lung Foundation Australia. On behalf of the Lung Foundation, we first of all wanted to acknowledge Minister Butler and the Albanese Government for what is a transformative investment in the lives of people at risk of lung cancer. Sadly, lung cancer in 2025 remains the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women in Australia. And after five years, only 26 per cent of people with a diagnosis of lung cancer are still alive.
 
It is on behalf of those people that the Lung Foundation is so incredibly thrilled to be here today with the Minister for the announcement of the National Lung Cancer Screening Program. Australia stands as leaders globally. We will be one of the first countries in the world to have a National Lung Cancer Screening Program that will look across Australia, and particularly because it's been co-designed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, will support those people who have often been forgotten.
 
But our message at the Lung Foundation is a really simple one. This is a safe procedure and we encourage everyone who meets the eligibility criteria, that is people who are 50 to 70, who smoke or have had a previous history of smoking and quit in the last 10 years. Do not be put off by getting this screen. It will save your life. Diagnosing lung cancer early allows clinicians like Professor Keefe to be able to bring all of the advancements in medicine to be able to treat you at a time when you do not desperately want to be diagnosed at stage 4.
 
We look forward in 2030 to seeing that survivorship rate increase to about 50 per cent of Australians, and that's why this program is incredibly transformative for people like Naomi and Tony and others. Catching lung cancer early will save your life.
 
We again, on behalf of all of those patients, many of whom have passed away over the last six years as we've undertaken the campaign to introduce lung cancer screening into Australia, we want to thank Minister Butler, Cancer Australia, all of the partners from the NGO sector who have worked with the Lung Foundation to bring this momentous occasion to a reality. On behalf of the Lung Foundation and everyone that we walk alongside, we wanted to thank you again, Minister, for what is an incredible investment in the health of Australians. So thank you.
 
NAOMI FITZAKERLEY: Hi, I’m Naomi Fitzakerley. I am a consumer representative for the Lung Foundation, but I'm here today as someone who's eligible for the National Lung Cancer Screening Program. As someone who has smoked before, I understand the stigma and why people don't go out to get a test. Something like this amazing program is going to normalise and destigmatise the people getting lung cancer screening.
 
JOURNALIST: Okay, just talk us through the process.
 
FITZAKERLEY: I go to the GP, you have to generally ask for a referral to get a lung cancer diagnostic. And it’s expensive, and it cuts out a lot of people who are lower socioeconomic, which is the group that we’re targeting, and makes people not want to get scans.
 
JOURNALIST: Yeah. And the actual scan itself, pain-free?
 
FITZAKERLEY: Pain-free.
 
JOURNALIST: Easy?
 
FITZAKERLEY: Yeah. Scans are easy. I would recommend that anybody who has smoked before, instead of thinking okay, I’ve smoked before, if I have it I’ll have it, I’ll just see what happens, which is something that you hear a lot, go out and get it. When you go and get your bowel screening or your breast screen, include it with those tests. It’ll be something that will prevent you from having a life changing diagnosis of a terminal cancer, and instead you can catch it when you’re early, when you’re stage 1, and able to still live a long and full life.
 
JOURNALIST: And you talked a little bit about the stigma. Why do you think people are embarrassed to come forward?
 
FITZAKERLEY: There is such a stigma around smoking, and one of the things that you get told is that you’ve caused it. If you say I have bowel cancer, they’ll say, “oh, okay, are you okay?” But if you say you have lung cancer or you have COPD or you have any sort of smoking related illness, people will all of a sudden switch off and say, “okay, yeah, so you did that, right.”
 
JOURNALIST: And Naomi, what was the outcome of your scan? Were you able to catch it early, or can you talk us through that?
 
FITZAKERLEY: I had lung condition when I was born as well so the lung cancer screening was for that, but there was no lung cancer at that time.
 
JOURNALIST: There’s a fairly pertinent medical dispute here with doctors. Where do you sit on the situation at the moment?
 
BUTLER: Obviously we want all of our health professionals, whether they're working in the public system or the private system to receive a wage that reflects the critical importance of the work that they do. There's around a million Australians who every day go to work as a doctor, a nurse, an allied health professional, a support worker. Of course we want to see them paid fairly. This is obviously a negotiation between the state government and the health unions, the doctors unions right now. There will be others into the future. These are happening in every state and every territory as they regularly do. Of course I encourage the parties to sit down and deal with each other in good faith, that's as I see it what is happening right now.
 
JOURNALIST: You mentioned allied health. They've recently gone on strike. The doctors, there's an imminent strike there. Are you confident this situation can get resolved?
 
BUTLER: I have high confidence in both the government and the health unions here in South Australia. They're a constructive lot. They both have the best interests of patients who use the South Australian health system at heart. I'm very confident they'll come to a deal.
 
JOURNALIST: In terms of allied health, I think in South Australia they're the lowest paid in the nation. Would you like to see more uniformity on that front in terms of their pay?
 
BUTLER: That's a matter for the state government. These tables change very regularly, often depending upon the timing of new enterprise agreements. I'm not across every single detail of every single occupation across the country, but I know there's a high level of willingness here on the part of the government and the health unions to strike a deal. I encourage them to do that as soon as they can.
 
JOURNALIST: What makes this screening program a world first? And, I guess, since given lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Australia, why has there been such a wait for this program?
 
BUTLER: I might ask Dorothy to add to my remarks, but we received the recommendations from the Medical Services Advisory Committee, I think in early 2023, maybe in late 2022. In the first available budget after that we funded that. We saw it as that important and that life-changing for a really large number of Australians who, frankly, have not seen the improvement in cancer survival rates we we've seen in other big cancer groups like breast and bowel and many others besides. I saw it as a really compelling case – as soon as the evidence had been compiled and the expert advice given to government, we acted upon it, and that's why we will be one of the first in the world. But I might ask Dorothy maybe to outline the process.
 
KEEFE: Thank you, Minister. With respect to your question, you can't have a screening program unless there's a screening test. And the screening test has to be widely available, not too expensive, and it has to work. It has to show you that there might be a cancer, and then you do definitive testing afterwards. Many years ago, we didn't have CAT scans, we only had x-rays. And x-rays are not sensitive enough to use for a screening program. They didn't find enough cancers. When CT scans first came in, as I said, back in the ‘80s, the dose of radiation in a CT scan was higher than it is now. And it wasn't until the dose of radiation got down to a very, very safe level to have a scan when you didn't have a symptom and the ability- the sort of granularity of looking at the scans got better and better and better. Then you have to do trails to make sure that this actually picks up the cancers, and then you have to make sure that it’s cost effective within your health system. All of those things came together. The evidence from the big clinical trials and the evidence from pilot studies in other countries, the lower doses of the CT scans all came together to say, yes, at this point we have reached, it is now cost effective to introduce a lung cancer screening program. We will diagnose more cancers, and we’ll be able to treat them.
 
JOURNALIST: Is it always smokers that are eligible? Because you do hear of the odd occasion where non-smokers do contract lung cancer.
 
KEEFE: That's a very good question. Again, 30 or 40 years ago, lung cancer was almost always in a smoker. The world has changed and for reasons that are not entirely clear, the incidence of lung cancer in non-smokers is rising. When we led the inquiry into whether we should have lung cancer screening in Australia, we looked at all of the potential risk factors for lung cancer and put them through the tests of: does it find the cancers, is it cost effective, and unfortunately at this point, it is not possible to detect enough lung cancers in non-smokers to include non-smokers in the program. But we are not going to be fixed about this. We are going to continue to do research and continue to monitor the evidence so that as soon as we find a way that we can screen for lung cancer in non-smokers, we will add that in. The idea of this program is that it is agile. We want to make sure that we always have the right population in the program, and in fact there's one little thing that we do worry about. We all worry that vaping is going to cause lung cancer. The evidence is not yet mature enough, but when, rather than if, it becomes mature enough, we will put that into the program.
 
BUTLER: Thanks everyone.