Press conference with Minister Butler, Adelaide – 3 October 2025

LUCY HOOD, SA MINISTER FOR CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Good morning. Thanks for joining us here today. I'm with Minister Mark Butler, also Professor Mike Steer from SARDI, and also Louise Miller-Frost, the Member for Boothby. We are announcing a $1.4 million jointly funded program to boost the resilience of our Australian sea lion population. South Australia is home to 80 per cent of the sea lion population, which is nationally endangered, an iconic species beloved by South Australians. Now, under this jointly funded plan, we are going to boost the recovery of Australian sea lions. The plan includes inoculating sea pups with Ivermectin, which decreases the susceptibility of the pups to a hookworm and significantly improves their survival. We're also controlling feral cats to reduce diseases like toxoplasmosis in the sea lion population and also installing pup shelters in high-risk locations. Now, this does a couple of things. It protects the young juveniles from heat stress caused by increasing temperatures as well as also the incidents where they may be crushed by larger adult sea lions.
 
Like I said, 80 per cent of this iconic population lives in South Australia off our waters, and this is an important measure to boost the resilience of this population. Now, historically, they have been hunted for their fur, and the numbers have dropped by about 60 per cent over the last 40 years. Now we think the population sits anywhere between 10,000 to 12,000, with 80 per cent of that being in South Australia.
 
Now, a recent survey of the sea lion population in the Pages Island actually did see an increase in the mortality during the breeding season of around 34 per cent. This joint funded package is really an important time in which we can help boost the resilience of this population so we can continue to see this iconic species in South Australia. I'll now pass over to the Federal Minister.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thanks so much, Lucy. This is another great example of the Commonwealth and South Australian governments working together, something that's particularly important now as we come to grips with the challenges presented by the algal bloom. As Lucy has said, we rely very much on South Australia as a country to support this threatened species because 80 per cent of all sea lions in Australia are in South Australian waters. There are a whole range of challenges and threats to this population, particularly while the sea lions are still pups because they take many years to mature. This program, which involves $1.2 million of the $1.4 million being contributed by the Commonwealth, will improve that resilience, as Minister Hood outlined.
 
In addition to some of the disease threats posed to sea lion pups, we, as a Commonwealth, are worried about the threat of H5N1, the variant of the bird flu that is present in every continent on the planet right now other than Australia. Feral cats are a potential vector for that disease if it does arrive in Australia, which would pose another threat to sea lion pups in addition to the other disease threats that Minister Hood has already mentioned.
 
We're very pleased to be able to do this to provide additional funding on top of the funding that Minister Watt and the Prime Minister have already relation to the algal bloom. This will improve the resilience on a range of fronts of this precious sea lion population, particularly the pups, and respond to some of the latest threats we've seen emerge out of the Pages Conservation Park.
 
MIKE STEER, SARDI: Alright, good morning, everyone. I'll just provide you with some information on the basis of the results that we've got through our annual survey. I just want to start off by saying and emphasise that the algal bloom, the Karenia species that we're dealing with, does not have a direct harm on air-breathing marine animals. It principally impacts gill-breathing marine organisms. There isn't a clear link, the link is with those animals that have gills.
 
The situation that we have here is that a survey was undertaken on the Pages Islands just recently, at the end of August. This is an annual survey that is undertaken by the State Government, and they observed elevated levels of mortality of young juveniles, those juveniles that are one to three months of age. This is just as part of their breeding season. Based on this count, we normally see around about 5 per cent of these young juveniles die through natural causes anyway because they do represent a vulnerable part of that life history. This survey indicated that it increased to around about 34 per cent. The issue that we have here is that the mothers that forage tend to forage in particular areas, there's a proportion of that population that forage in the area around Investigator Strait, which is south of Kangaroo Island. And it's recognised that as part of this algal bloom, there's been a considerable amount of fish, sharks, rays, cephalopods, squid, octopus that have suffered as a consequence of this algal bloom. Those are gill-breathing organisms. It looks like there's been a cascading impact around the impact of the removal of those fish and cephalopods and sharks out of the food chain. What appears to have happened is these foraging mothers have expended more time and energy looking for prey, and as a consequence, their pups that were the juvenile, one- to three-month-old, left behind had suffered nutritional stress. The autopsies that have been done on a proportion of those animals have confirmed that they were under nutritional stress, and it's also confirmed that they weren't impacted by the avian flu.
 
To reiterate, this is likely an indirect effect of the algal bloom as a result of the impact that it's had on the trophic or on the food chain. And we've seen, I guess, a cascading impact to a breeding colony that happened to be synchronised around the time of algal bloom. Happy to take any questions around the ecology and biology.
 
JOURNALIST: Mike, how do feral cats transfer toxoplasmosis to sea lions?
 
STEER: I'm unsure.
 
HOOD: That is as a cause of cat faeces entering into the waters, which then can impact the mothers, and then when they feed their young, it can transfer to them and cause increase in mortality.
 
JOURNALIST: How will they be controlled, feral cats?
 
HOOD: There are feral cat management, particularly on Kangaroo Island, and so that is one way in which we can reduce that instance of, yes, the toxic- toxoplasmosis.
 
JOURNALIST: And how do we inoculate sea lion pups with Ivermectin? Are they caught or are these ones that are already being brought up in some sort of captivity, or were they actually caught out in the wild and injected and then set off?
 
HOOD: Correct, yes. The treatment would occur during the breeding season, once they've been born. The scientists would actually be able to go out to those areas and provide the treatment. This joint funding that we're announcing today will allow that in particular to occur on Pages Island for the next breeding season.
 
JOURNALIST: The mortality number, 34 per cent, from that recent survey, is that number inclusive of the mortality that's come from the lack of food because of the algal bloom or is that separate to the algal bloom?
 
HOOD: Normally it's a mortality rate of around 5 per cent, what we've seen on the Pages Island for probably the last four breeding seasons. We believe this is a localised event where the mortality has increased to about 34 per cent, and it's pointing to the fact that we see the adult females going out to feed in an area that was impacted by the algal bloom. It correlates with their breeding season. We believe they had their young and went out to feed, and particularly just off of Kangaroo Island and Investigator Strait. What that meant was that they were either spending more time feeding for themselves and then being away from their young, but either then returning and maybe just not having the required food source for the juvenile sea lions. We believe it is a localised event. We have looked at other breeding areas and things are occurring as normal, but it's also interesting to point out that sea lions have different breeding periods. This case in Pages Island, the breeding season did directly occur around the time that the harmful algal bloom was in that feeding area for the adult females.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister Butler, can I please ask you quickly about the government's reaction to the events in Manchester overnight?
 
BUTLER: This is just an awful atrocity we've witnessed in the UK, in Manchester, which we condemn unambiguously. This is clearly a deeply violent anti-Semitic attack. Jewish populations around the world have seen a very significant increase in anti-Semitism, including, I have to say, here in Australia. They are the only community in our country that is required to take their children to schools behind security fences with security guards, and sometimes with police guard as well during school hours. It's the only community that has their nursing homes guarded 24/7 because of some of the threats that are issued against elderly residents in a nursing home, some of whom are Holocaust survivors. We are a country that's dealing with this rise in anti-Semitism that we've seen since October 7, but over the last 24 hours or so we've seen an absolutely horrific atrocity in Manchester leading to at least two deaths at the time I last read a report and potentially more given that there are injuries as well. We utterly condemn this latest act of anti-Semitic violence.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you think there's any connection between that terror attack and the UK recognising the state of Palestine?
 
BUTLER: No, look, I reject any idea that a country like the UK or Australia for that matter or Canada or many others, that are seeking to make a contribution to a peaceful resolution of this awful conflict in the Middle East are somehow motivating an awful mindless terrorist attack. At the end of the day, the responsibility for a violent terrorist attack like this rests with the terrorists themselves.
 
JOURNALIST: On a similar topic, has the Government had confirmation that Australian citizens have been detained in Gaza and if so, is it now providing consular assistance?
 
BUTLER: I haven't received an update over the last six hours or so, but when I last was updated, we had made a formal request to the Israeli authorities for an update on any Australians who were being held in detention by Israeli authorities. We understand from reports that there are some of those, and of course we've requested consular access to provide the usual consular assistance that we would provide to any Australians in detention like this. I have to say though, as I said earlier this morning, that our advice has long been against Australians taking part in exercises like this, seeking to break the naval blockade around Gaza for obvious safety reasons. This is a dangerous activity to embark upon, and people are advised by their Australian government not to do that. We recognise people want to see aid flow in Gaza, particularly basic aid like food and medicines to citizens, but there are ways in which to do that and seeking to involve yourself in a flotilla like this is not advised.
 
JOURNALIST: On Bedford, $4.4 million promised from the feds today, is this a change in messaging? When Bedford first got into strife, you said the Federal Government can't be bailing out these companies and that Bedford had made their own mess. Why the change and why the new money now?
 
BUTLER: We've done this reluctantly, frankly. Bedford should be in a position where they're able to continue operating on the basis of their usual income sources, the vast bulk of which are provided by Commonwealth taxpayers, in order to work out how they implement the restructuring plan that McGrathNicol has prepared. To his great credit, Premier Malinauskas put money on the table that allowed us to get to the bottom of the financial crisis that Bedford management has got that organisation into. Then to prepare a restructuring plan and start a sales process that will consider whether or not this organisation should be transferred to another operator.
 
What we've done today is said that we'll bring $4.4 million to the table to allow Bedford to continue operating while that sales process runs its course. Because frankly, Bedford does not have the liquidity to continue even over those short, relatively few weeks. We understand that McGrathNicoll, for bids to be received by the middle of October. The taxpayer money that we have put on the table, reluctantly frankly, should ensure that Bedford is able to keep operating, that the hundreds of employees are able to keep turning up to work while we test the market and see whether there's another operator out there willing to take this on.
 
JOURNALIST: Are you confident that someone will want to buy Bedford?
 
BUTLER: That's obviously up to the market. Our job is to give it every possible chance, every possible opportunity to keep this terrific South Australian icon operating for another 80 years. At the end of the day, there are still hundreds of employees of this organisation, many of them living with a disability, who work their guts out every day to make this organisation a success. Unfortunately, tragically really, Bedford Management has made a number of ill-advised financial decisions that has meant this 80-year-old icon of our state is now really on a precipice.
 
Peter Malinauskas and the State Government have done the right thing to buy time to get some expert advice about what a future looks like, a viable future. We've added to that, putting $4.4 million on the table to ensure that the organisation is liquid, is able to keep operating on a day-to-day basis while we test the market. Obviously, we hope, I'm sure Lucy and her South Australian colleagues hope, that there is a future for this organisation because at its core, it's a strong business model. It has a significant income stream, largely from the Commonwealth Government, to keep operating. It just needs to get over this hump that, frankly, Bedford Management has created.
 
JOURNALIST: Are there other incentives that the Federal Government can put on the table, say NDIS funding or other things that maybe can make Bedford more attractive to a buyer beyond just taxpayer money?
 
BUTLER: They get millions and millions of dollars in NDIS funding and funding for their disability employment programs from the Commonwealth on an ongoing basis. They are a very big provider. By far, the biggest employment services provider for people with a disability in South Australia, by far. Indeed, they're the second biggest in the whole country. They make very substantial amounts of money from Commonwealth programs already.
 
That's why I think this is a viable organisation for someone to consider taking over. This is a strong model. It's served the state well for 80 years. I think it's got a great future ahead of it, if it can have another operator come in and take over the management.
 
JOURNALIST: Is this it though, $4.4 million, the final amount of money that the feds will give?
 
BUTLER: We've been asked to consider providing some liquidity to enable the sales process to run its course.
 
JOURNALIST: So, is that beyond the 4.4? This is the 4.4?
 
BUTLER: No, this is the 4.4 to allow it to continue to run through the course of this sales process. The market will be tested. At the end of the day we can't force someone to take it over. I desperately hope, I'm sure the Premier desperately hopes, there's a good reputable provider out there that will take this business over. It's by and large a sound business, but ultimately that's a matter for the market.
 
JOURNALIST: I just wanted to ask you about public health funding. The New South Wales Premier, Chris Minns, says hospitals there may have to turn patients away if they don't get the requested money. What do you think of that? Is Minns being alarmist?
 
BUTLER: We've put a very generous hospital funding offer on the table amounting to about $215 billion, which is $20 billion more than they would usually get, than states would usually get from the Commonwealth. Because we recognise that public hospitals across the country are under very real pressure. I accept that premiers will want more and Premier Minns and a number of others have been out making a claim for more. But they also recognise, I'm sure, that the Commonwealth is also investing in a range of other important areas of health.
 
We're opening more Urgent Care Clinics over the coming few months. Only this week we've listed more cancer medicines on the PBS, and we're cutting the price scripts again. Obviously, in a few weeks the record investment we're making in bulk billing to ensure people can get to see their GP quickly and cheaply, free of charge, just taking their Medicare card, is obviously also going to relieve pressure on hospital systems.
 
We've got a shared commitment to build a terrific healthcare system, whether it's in primary care or in hospitals. I'm sure once we actually get to the table and start negotiating, we'll get a deal that reflects that shared commitment.
 
JOURNALIST: So those negotiations haven't started yet?
 
BUTLER: We've sent some correspondence to premiers. There's been a meeting of officials over the last 24 hours or so. There's not yet been a meeting of ministers or first ministers. We've seen some media over the course of the last 24 hours from premiers, obviously. I'm not going to conduct negotiations through media myself. We've put what I think is a very generous offer also complementing the very significant investment we're making to strengthen Medicare, to make medicines cheaper and to introduce new models of care that are important for our system like Urgent Care Clinics.
 
JOURNALIST: Just back to Bedford. What assurance can you provide workers that their jobs will be protected after the sale, particularly if a private buyer takes over?
 
BUTLER: We'll have to see what the market comes up with, what a potential new buyer comes up with, and there will be a private negotiation about those arrangements. What we're trying to do today is to give employees confidence that we're giving this organisation every possible chance to have a strong future that reflects a strong history.
 
There are hundreds and hundreds of workers here who I know are desperately worried about their job from week to week. At the end of the day, Premier Malinauskas with his package meant that organisation was able to continue for a period of time and not simply lock the gates, which is potentially what they would have had to do. We've added to that by saying that we're going to introduce some liquidity that means employees can turn up to work now and have confidence that we are going to be able to test the market to see whether there's a new operator for this organisation. But what that looks like is, obviously, only going to become clear as that process unfolds.
 
JOURNALIST: Will that $4.4 million solely be used to support the employment of workers during the sale process, or how would that be monitored?
 
BUTLER: We’re going to channel the money through the South Australian Government that’s got the direct relationship right now with Bedford. That’ll mean the money can move very quickly, and it will essentially go to ensure that Bedford can keep its current operations going while the sales process continues. That’s essentially what the injection of funds from the South Australian Government did when the Premier made that announcement. There are a whole range of very much day-to-day liabilities that Bedford had that they needed to be able to equip but didn’t have the money to equip until the Premier was able to provide them with that lifeline. That’s essentially what we’re doing here, and we shouldn’t have to do it, frankly. We already provide substantial funds to this organisation through developed programs like the NDIS and Disability Employment. I can tell you that I deeply regret that I’ve had to find another $4.4 million of taxpayer funds simply to keep this operation going through a sales process because the management got this organisation into such a deep financial crisis.
 
JOURNALIST: How persistent have the State Government and the Premier been? It’s my understanding they were pretty relieved that you came to the table today.
 
BUTLER: This has been yet another example of a really constructive relationship between our government and the South Australian Government. There’s been constant conversation between our officials. There’s been regular conversation between me and the Premier about this. We recognise that that first foray, if you like, from the Premier and the South Australian Government was important to get to the bottom of what was happening with Bedford. The depth of the crisis came very late in the day. They had not made the sorts of notifications that they were legally required to do to the National Disability Insurance Commission, for example, so we had an obligation to get to the bottom of quite how deep this financial crisis was. Obviously, the South Australian Government’s package also involved them securing a property in Clapham, which is a good outcome for South Australian taxpayers. But there was always an understanding that once we had that information, we had the expert advice of McGrathNicols about what a restructuring plan, what a plan for the future of Bedford would look like, the Premier was always clear that he was essentially then handing over to the Commonwealth to take the next step, and that’s what we’ve done. And I understand we’ve got the support of the Premier to do that.
 
JOURNALIST: Just one more about aged care beds. The State Government is about to announce a state-based solution to try to get some federal aged care patients out of the hospital system. How come the Federal Government isn't doing more in this space to help?
 
BUTLER: It's right to say we don't have enough aged care beds anywhere in the country. That's a problem here in South Australia as it is elsewhere, because not enough beds were built over the last many years. We've introduced new legislation that passed the Parliament just before Christmas that changes the investability of this sector, and already we're seeing the number of beds that are planned to be built next year increase by about double the number of beds being built this year. But we want to see more, we want to see it quicker, and I've said time and time again to the aged care sector, you asked for these reforms and said that that would lead to a state of new building. It's time now for you to engage in those plans and start building the beds that South Australia needs and, frankly, the rest of the country needs. In the meantime, we've got good discussions happening, not just with the South Australian Government, but with other state and territory governments about what we do in the meantime before those beds actually are built and start opening. We've already provided funding to the South Australian Government and others to try and make sure that patients are able to flow through the hospital system and get out the other end when they're medically able to be discharged into something more appropriate.
 
JOURNALIST: So if the building hasn't even started yet, this is a very long-term problem we're going to continue facing beyond probably this term of government, maybe even next if we haven't even started building those aged care beds yet.
 
BUTLER: Beds are being built. There was very little building happening before we came to government, certainly before we made the reforms we made in December. That rate of building and approvals has started to increase since the legislative reforms, but we're still well short of where we need to be. My job with Cabinet responsibility for aged care is to frankly push providers. They asked for these reforms. They said it would lead to a spate of new building. The number of beds we need to build over the next 20 years to accommodate the ageing baby boomer generation is very, very substantial. We're going to have to see lots of building, not just over the next few years, but over the next two decades. And we're determined to do everything we can to underpin that building. But we know we've got to work with state governments in the meantime to deal with that gap..
 
JOURNALIST: The options being explored if we have to, we need a short-term solution here?
 
BUTLER: There's a range of different programs we're already funding for this State Government and other state governments in the country as well to try and prevent people going to hospital in the first place if they can be cared for in nursing homes or in other settings. Also trying to fund some additional specialist services, particularly for patients with higher-level dementia who might be hard to place into a nursing home as well. I recognise and I've said clearly there's more we need to do, and that's why we're having very productive discussions with all state governments about that, and frankly those discussions will be connected to the hospital negotiations that I was asked about earlier.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on the illegal tobacco shops, just quickly, what is the Federal Government doing to crackdown on that and the tobacco wars that we're seeing so much at the moment?
 
BUTLER: Our principal job is to try and stop as much of this product coming into the country in the first place. We've been very successful stopping the inflow of illegal vapes, and we've substantially increased the number of illegal cigarettes being seized at the border. Frankly, the numbers are jaw-dropping. I think in the last year we intercepted I think in the order of 2.5 billion cigarettes, which is just a huge number when you consider we've got about 2 million smokers in this country. But on top of that, we need enforcement on the ground. I've said before, South Australia is leading the country in this respect. I've stood up a couple of times with Minister Andrea Michaels. The powers she was granted by the government and the Parliament to close down stores, to take action against landlords if they knowingly have a tenant who is engaging in this illegal trade are nation leading. They're being copied by other jurisdictions. For example, New South Wales has only very recently said that they intend to take up the South Australia model because we've got to start prosecuting these people. These are good laws and they should be enforced against bad people. This market is being controlled by serious organised crime who are using the money that they get from it to bankroll cybercrime, drug trafficking, sex trafficking. People should not think this is a victimless crime, buying and selling illegal cigarettes. It is bankrolling some of the worst criminals in this country.
 
JOURNALIST: The state Opposition is calling for longer bans to be applied on illegal tobacco shops, shutting them down for up to a year. Do you think that's a good idea?
 
BUTLER: I think the South Australian Government is leading the country here. I'm not aware South Australian Opposition is saying, but what I'm saying is I get around the country to other states and territories. Have a look at what South Australia is doing it's the best in the country.