Press conference with Minister Butler, Canberra – 28 May 2026

SUBJECTS: Hantavirus quarantine update; diphtheria; vaccination rates; NDIS.

MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Afternoon. I’d just like to provide an update on where the country sits right now in relation to a couple of disease outbreaks I’ve reported on before. The first I’ll deal with is the question of quarantine arrangements for Australians and one New Zealander impacted by the hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius. People will recall that this very serious outbreak occurred on a cruise ship which ultimately disembarked its passengers at Tenerife in the Canary Islands. After a short layover in the Netherlands, five Australians; four citizens, one permanent resident, and one New Zealander were transported by a DFAT-organised charter to RAAF Base Pearce northeast of Perth and transported immediately to the National Resilience Facility at Bullsbrook, which is effectively next door to the air force base. Those six passengers have remained there under a quarantine order made under the Biosecurity Act, and that order endures for three weeks and comes to a conclusion on 5 June.
 
I previously reported that World Health Organization advice and the advice of our own health officials is that the incubation period for hantavirus can be up to 42 days, so World Health Organization advice is that quarantine arrangements remain in place of some type or another for those 42 days. The number of countries, which I think is about 23 countries, that have taken passengers back from that cruise ship have put in place a range of different quarantine arrangements, some of them tightly managed, like ours, some of them more home-based quarantine.
 
I indicated at the time that during that three-week period of the first order, we would take advice about what to do for the remainder of the 42 days, effectively another three weeks. Since that time over the last few days, there have been two additional reports of hantavirus infections connected with this cruise ship. On the weekend, a crew member from the cruise ship in the Netherlands tested positive, and only in the last day or so a passenger from a cruise ship in Spain has also tested positive, confirming that the risk of transmission of this after disembarkation has not passed. Of the 13 cases now confirmed, there have been three deaths, indicating how serious this virus can be.
 
I have sought further advice from the AHPC, the Australian Health Protection Committee, which is the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer and all of the jurisdictional chief health officers, and their advice is that it would be appropriate for that quarantine arrangement to remain in place for the rest of the 42 day incubation period. As a result, on the basis of accepting that advice, it is likely an order will be made to extend that quarantine period to 23 June. The passengers have been informed about the advice and the decision of government. I’m happy to say they remain well. They’ve only been tested again in the last 24 or 36 hours or so, and all six have again tested negative. But the cases overseas and the advice, not just of our public health officials but of the World Health Organization, indicate that that does not mean that the risk of testing positive sometime in the future during that 42 day incubation period has completely passed.
 
I thought I’d very quickly provide an update on the diphtheria outbreak as well. As at 26 May, so the end of the day before yesterday, 254 cases of diphtheria have been reported or notified through our disease surveillance system to the Centre for Disease Control, the CDC. Still about 60 per cent of those cases are in the Northern Territory. The vast bulk of the remainder are in WA in the Kimberley region, and a handful of cases in Queensland and South Australia, although those case numbers have stabilised. There is still only one death that has been confirmed as a result of diphtheria, although I know that there have been some reports of a second suspected death. That has not been confirmed by the NT Government, and at the moment there is no evidence of there having been a second death. But I continue to say to the community this is a very serious outbreak, of deep concern to our government and to a number of other jurisdictional governments. I know it's also a particular concern to Aboriginal medical services, given that well over 90 per cent of cases are Indigenous Australians in the NT and in WA.
 
As I've indicated before, funding is being provided to Aboriginal medical services to continue to support their work of vaccination, information, treatment of people who have been infected. And we've also provided more than $5 million to the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, which is based in Darwin, which is now surging the workforce to do that work alongside trusted Aboriginal health workers through the AMS’s in those communities, in the NT in particular. I thank the NCCTRC staff for that. As it happens, the NCCTRC is also staffing the Bullsbrook quarantine facility which is housing these six passengers from the MV Hondius impacted by the hantavirus outbreak. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, just on the issue of these diseases broadly. Childhood immunisation rates in Australia for the last three years have fallen below the target of 95 per cent. Diphtheria is preventable, vaccination is the best prevention. Are you concerned that that level is persistently below 95 per cent, and what more can maybe be done to lift those rates?
 
BUTLER: Yeah, excuse me, Clare. I've said a couple of times, we are going to need to examine what has happened to drive this diphtheria outbreak. It is many, many, many times bigger than any previous outbreak we've seen for many years, the biggest probably since the 1950’s. I'm reluctant, though, to say that vaccination rates are a significant driver of this, the patients impacted by this outbreak are largely adults.
 
And what that indicates is the need to consider boosting your immunity as adults. The immunity that you get from your childhood vaccination for diphtheria does wane over time. ATAGI, the immunisation experts have updated their advice, particularly for Indigenous Australians in remote communities, to have a booster shot, particularly if you're over 50, every five years. And a lot of the effort has been on delivering those booster shots to adults. About 10,000 vaccinations in the NT which is a big swag of the NT population, have been delivered over recent weeks through the efforts that I've already been talking about.
 
Hantavirus is obviously not an immunisation question, but the diphtheria one does remind us of the importance of maintaining an immunisation effort. Some of these diseases which we thought had been largely consigned to the dustbin of history, like diphtheria, like measles, are showing a re-emergence, not just here in Australia but in a number of other countries where particularly childhood immunisation rates are dropping.
 
I don't want to have a bet each way, Clare, on your question, but there are deeper issues at play, I think, driving this diphtheria outbreak, many of them about social determinants, overcrowding, sanitation conditions in housing. But there is certainly a much broader challenge to make sure that we find a way to stop the slow but steady decline in childhood immunisation rates that we've seen in Australia, and pretty much everywhere else around the world since COVID.
 
JOURNALIST: Would you put some of that reluctance to immunise children post-COVID to the anti-immunisation movement, scepticism about the value of anti-immunisation during the COVID period?
 
BUTLER: Look, it seems to me there are a couple of different factors at play. One is a general sense of vaccine fatigue or hesitancy after COVID, as I think the researchers describe it. But as a background, frankly, this would have happened irrespective of COVID. There's just more misinformation and disinformation online about a whole range of aspects of good public health policy, including immunisation. And that's why we run childhood immunisation campaigns. We try to get those messages out, particularly to parents and expectant parents, through the places where they are, through the social media channels where they are, where they're reading.
 
We're certainly in a point now, having really got to the final stage of our current childhood immunisation campaign, that we're going to have a look and think about refreshing that message to ensure that it is as effective as possible at dispelling that misinformation and disinformation. And just assuring and reminding parents that immunising your child is another very important way of keeping them safe.
 
JOURNALIST: On another issue, Minister. The Coalition are still leaving the door open to drawing out, delaying, withholding support for the NDIS changes if they don't get a longer inquiry into the tax CGT changes. In your conversations with the Coalition about the NDIS is, that issue coming up and what would be the impact if that was delayed?
 
BUTLER: We've had very constructive discussions with the Opposition. I've certainly had very constructive discussions with my shadow, Melissa McIntosh, in the House of Representatives. We've agreed a format and a number of days of hearing for this inquiry, which is scheduled to report on 16 June. I have no reason to think, as at presently advised at least, that is going to change. There has been good constructive engagement.
 
Now, I understand that, particularly in the wake of a budget, there are a lot of moving parts here and there's lots of speculation and some argy-bargy in the Senate around process. But I have no reason to believe right now that this inquiry is not going to proceed as was agreed between the Government and the Opposition.
 
JOURNALIST: If I can ask on diphtheria again. You've said that there are larger issues to be confronted in this outbreak. When we look at something like Closing the Gap, we're often told that there are lower life expectancy rates for First Nations communities, this almost looks like it's playing out in front of our eyes. Does this outbreak inform how your department works with Closing the Gap measures?
 
BUTLER: Yes, to a degree. But I do, I am reluctant to come to, sort of, definitive conclusions about what has driven this outbreak. I think you've heard a similar message from some of the public health practitioners on the ground here that, yes, there needs to be a pretty close and detailed examination of something that clearly has gone wrong here. There's no other way to explain a way an outbreak that is so historically significant and different from trends. But equally, those same practitioners and officials have said our efforts today need to be on containment, and that's certainly the view of the Commonwealth. We're doing everything we can to support the Northern Territory Government and Aboriginal Medical Services to bring this thing under control. We're not yet there.
 
This outbreak is continuing to grow. About a quarter of cases end up in hospital, which gives you a sense that this is a serious disease, a serious condition. But I want to send a message that, once we do get this under control, we're not simply going to move on. We are going to have a good look at how this happened and how we prevent it from happening, certainly at this scale, again.
 
JOURNALIST: Can we go back to our discussion on diphtheria vaccinations? Are you having any discussion with your colleagues in the Education portfolio about how you deal with misinformation and disinformation in the school curriculum so that, over time, what happens in social media becomes less impactful and people are more conscious of the health benefits of vaccination?
 
BUTLER: As I indicated, I think we’re at a point now, particular around childhood immunisation campaigns, public health campaigns around that, to have a- take a pause and have another look at research, and reconsider the way in which our messages are being presented, to just check that they are the most effective. And I think those sorts of things will be factors on the table there.
 
Thanks, everyone.