Radio interview with Minister Butler, ABC Adelaide – 13 May 2026

SONYA FELDHOFF, HOST: Well, last night, the Federal Budget was handed down. And at the centre of that, the centrepiece of that, was major changes to issues around housing, capital gains tax, trusts and the whole way we do this in the bid to get 75,000 more people into homes. There was a lot of other stuff in that budget, Jules, but joining us now is South Australian Labor Minister, the Health Minister of the country, Mark Butler. Good morning to you.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Morning, Sonya. Morning, Jules.
 
FELDHOFF: Now, in terms of these major changes at the centrepiece here, it seems like even the Treasurer concedes these will only slow the growth of house prices rather than bringing house prices down. So is it really achieving its aim of getting tens of thousands of extra Australians into homes?
 
BUTLER: That is our modelling, and I think you said in your introduction that there’ll be 75,000 more people into their first home. And what that effectively does is reverse a decade of decline that we’ve seen in the data. But your listeners would’ve seen in their families, in their extended families, where it’s just so much tougher for young people to break into the housing market. House prices have gone up by about 400 per cent in the last 25 years. Wages have gone up by half that much, so it’s hard for them to break in. And so often we hear stories of first home buyers effectively having to compete with investors who have the benefit of preferential tax treatment. So we’re adding to supply. The price impact will be very modest, we think about 2 per cent over coming years, but what it will do is just change the competitive balance in many of those auctions.
 
JULES SCHILLER, HOST: I mean, this analysis of the housing market isn’t new. You just have to talk to the Grattan Institute or any kind of economist that said that it's been unfair for a while. So why did you not announce this before the last election? Why did you have to break a promise to bring it in?
 
BUTLER: We want to be really clear with people that we've come to a different view over the last couple of years. In the last election, we made very clear that our focus was increasing supply, and we're continuing to do that. There's more investments in last night's budget to see more houses built.
 
SCHILLER: But what's changed over the last two years, though, that hasn't been happening for the last decade?
 
BUTLER: As I said, our focus was on building more houses. If you get more houses, there's more opportunities for people, less competitive pressure in those auctions that people go to on Saturday afternoons. We've also been, with our 5 per cent deposits, making it easier for young people to get into the market. They don't have to spend a decade saving for the deposit on what are now very elevated house prices. But it just hasn't been shifting the dial enough. We've come to a view we could wait for a couple of years and just continue to see this Australian dream slip away for so many young people, or we could act and front up to the Australian people and explain why we think we've had to do that. And that's what we're doing.
 
We're also making it clear, though, that if you have entered arrangements in the past up until yesterday, if you've got a negatively geared property, you can continue to negatively gear that. If you've made gains on that capital investment, those gains up until last night will continue under the arrangements that existed before the Budget.
 
FELDHOFF: And so, can we be clear on that? Because that's something I'm a bit unclear on here with those grandfathering rules. If you continue to hold your homes beyond today, does the equation relate from this point on to the new rules, or does it continue forever?
 
BUTLER: If you've got a property that you own now and you're negatively gearing it, you will be able to continue to do that, whether it's an existing property or a new build. From July next year, though, the only new negative gearing arrangement people will be able to start will be if they purchase a new home. For new purchases from today, negative gearing will apply only to those new purchases if you're adding to supply effectively, if you're investing in new capacity for the country. But to be very clear, if anyone now has a property and are negatively gearing it, they will be able to continue to do that well into the future.
 
FELDHOFF: And capital gains tax, will the profits you've achieved up until this point be protected and only profits from this point on be charged at the new rate?
 
BUTLER: One hundred per cent, that's right. Gains up until now will be subject to the old 50 per cent discount. Gains from now will be taxed at effectively real gains, so taxed at inflation, which was the old arrangement. And there'll be a tax office calculator to help work that out, or people can get a valuation done on the first of- effective 27 July. It's not from today, it's from 27 July. Any gains made after that will be taxed at the inflation rate. Gains made before will be taxed at the existing arrangement.
 
SCHILLER: Now, Mark Butler, you know, one argument is that the way to bring down housing prices is just simply to build more homes. And there's a view on the text line that we're bringing in more people through immigration than we can build homes. So that's creating a scarcity, pushing up prices. And we know the Opposition has said that now you're going to build 35,000 fewer homes under this policy. So do you accept that this government is having a difficult choice- it's a difficult situation, you're not building enough homes?
 
BUTLER: I don't accept there's one simple solution to what is a really deep endemic problem we have with getting young people into their first home. Yes, we've got to do more supply. We've said that for four years. We're investing more in new supply arrangements last night than the tens of billions we've already invested in the four years we've been in government. Yes, we've got to get on and build more houses. We've had migration come down by more than 40 per cent since it peaked after the COVID pandemic. But we understand that's putting pressure on housing supply as well. I just don't accept the idea there's only one solution to what is a really complex and deeply rooted challenge in our community. And it's not just young people who talk to us about this, talk to me about this. It's mums and dads, it's grandparents who are deeply worried about the fact that their kids and grandkids are not being able to break into the housing market in the way that they did.
 
FELDHOFF: Now, a couple of weeks ago, you were making the big announcement of the major changes and reform of the NDIS system, the savings from which are funding a lot of these changes that we heard last night. But some are saying that's not entirely realistic, those projections. Are you confident that they will be made?
 
BUTLER: I'm very confident. Tomorrow, I'll be introducing legislation which will include the first tranche of those changes to get the NDIS back on track. I want to be clear, the NDIS will continue to grow every year for the 10 years that we've projected. It will continue to be the biggest social program we have in this country outside of the age pension, but we've got to slow the growth. We've got to make sure the money is getting to where it's needed rather than going to fraudsters and shonks. And the legislation I introduce tomorrow and hope to pass by 30 June will make the first changes to deliver that.
 
SCHILLER: Can you slow its growth from 10 per cent to 2 per cent though? Many people would claim that's very ambitious.
 
BUTLER: It is ambitious, but it's absolutely necessary, and we've worked very hard to get the package to do that. I've been completely upfront. I outlined it at the Press Club. It's there in black and white, and it will be in the legislation I introduce tomorrow and hope to pass in the next five weeks.
 
SCHILLER: Just quickly while we've got you, many people are texting in about your intention to reduce the higher rebate for private health insurance. And many older listeners are saying, well, this is going to encourage them either to downgrade their private health insurance or get off it completely.
 
FELDHOFF: Increasing ramping.
 
SCHILLER: Yeah. Do you accept that that's going to happen as a result of these changes?
 
BUTLER: We think that the very small number of people who might choose to suspend their private health insurance as a result of this change, less than half a per cent, is about a quarter of the growth that private health insurance is currently seeing every single year. It won't have an impact on overall membership in that sense. But it's also the right thing to do. I don't think we can sustain a position where two households next to each other are getting different subsidies for their private health insurance when they earn the same income but happen to be at a different age. Paying the same subsidy to all Australians based on their income rather than their age is, I think, the right thing to do. And every dollar that we save on that is going into new aged care investment, more aged care beds, more packages and better care for people.
 
FELDHOFF: Mark Butler, thank you for your time. He is the Federal Health Minister. We only have a short time with him this morning, but hopefully we'll be able to expound some of the detail of this budget further later. Thank you for your time.
 
BUTLER: Thanks very much.