Radio interview with Minister Butler, ABC AM – 24 February 2025

SABRA LANE, HOST: Mark Butler is the Federal Health Minister. Mark Butler, thanks for joining AM.
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Morning, Sabra.
 
LANE: The Prime Minister says this election is make or break for Medicare. The Opposition's matched the promise on bulk billing. Does the government have more to announce on health ahead of polling day or is this it?
 
BUTLER: No, we'll continue to focus on health because it's so important for the Australian people. It is at any time, let alone, as we continue to recover from a once in a century pandemic. But yesterday's announcement was the single largest investment in Medicare, probably in its history, certainly in anyone's living memory. It will start to turn around that real challenge of affordability that people who don't have a concession card have, and I know you and I have talked about before.
 
LANE: This bulk billing commitment won't start until November, and already doctors are expecting patients will assume it starts right now and they're asking them to be patient. Why wait until November? Why not start it immediately?
 
BUTLER: The 1st of November is when the changes to these rebates typically occur. That gives practices time to update their software.  That's a pretty quick start to a very, very substantial change in how Medicare operates. As I said, for the first time, we'll be giving bulk billing support to all Australians, including those who don't have a concession card. For the first time, we'll be giving practices an incentive payment in the event that they bulk bill all 100 per cent of their patients. That takes a little bit of time to roll out, but we're not ramping this up, it all starts on the 1st of November.
 
LANE: The Australian Medical Association has welcomed it but says that Medicare needs modernising by restructuring the way it works to fund longer consultations for chronic conditions because we are an ageing population as well. The current scheme is not designed to cope with that. Is the government contemplating that kind of change?
 
BUTLER: The current structure of Medicare really suits the patient profile of the 1980s and 90s more than it does the patient profile of today, someone who is more likely to have complex chronic disease. I agree very strongly with the AMA on that. We've starting to roll out some programs to structure funding to deliver multidisciplinary care that wraps around the patient rather than single episodes of care that really characterised Medicare in decades past. I entirely agree with the AMA on that. We've got a strong challenge to restructure Medicare around a different patient profile. But the burning platform right now for our government is that bulk billing is sliding for people without a concession card, out-of-pocket costs are rising, and more Australians are choosing not to go to the doctor when they should because of costs. That's what we have to address right now.
 
LANE: The National Rural Health Alliance says this new policy will do little to change their reality of failed markets or thin markets. Is there more help coming for them?
 
BUTLER: There are more doctors coming to rural Australia, including from overseas markets. We have very high confidence in that and we are fast tracking GPs from the UK, New Zealand, Ireland. We're fast tracking nurses from similar jurisdictions. The increase in the bulk billing incentive is far more significant outside of the major cities. There are extra loadings for rural practices that mean that really for a non-concessional patient, a standard consult income for a GP now pretty much doubled. We've got a very strong focus on rural markets.  
 
LANE: But still they're unhappy. I mean, that's their statement following the release of your policy yesterday?
 
BUTLER: But we're continuing to work with them on really bespoke solutions, really tailored solutions where there are markets that are general practice or private general practice just isn't choosing to go and set up in. We'll continue to work with the alliance.
 
LANE: If this is the beating heart of Labor's re-election campaign. How are you going to convince voters to vote for Labor? A new poll out by resolve this morning shows that your primary votes at 25 per cent and, if accurate and repeated on polling day, that means you're headed for a loss?
 
BUTLER: I think there are a couple of polls out today and there'll be many, more between now and the election, I'm sure. We've all been clear this is going to be a tight election. There is a very real chance that Peter Dutton will be the Prime Minister in a couple of months. We've seen elections across the world very tight after the five years that people have gone through. We're under no illusions about that. But on Medicare, that would be an enormous risk to take.
 
LANE: They’ve promised to match your policy?
 
BUTLER: But they promised that in 2013, Sabra. They promised there'd be no cuts to health. And within a few months, Peter Dutton, as Health Minister, tried to cut $50 billion out of public hospitals and abolish bulk billing altogether. We've seen this film before. They'll try and neutralise health as a policy because of their record. And when they come into government, those cuts that Peter Dutton has again promised but says he won't outline to the Australian people, they'll be back on the table. And even if you leave that pretty significant historical fact aside, why would you trust the person who created this mess in the first place to clean it up? Because no one can test that the challenge with bulk billing right now traces back to the decision Peter Dutton made -
 
LANE: It traces back to Labor introducing this freeze in 2013?
 
BUTLER: That’s not right Sabra.
 
LANE: It is.
 
BUTLER: It is not right at all. In 2013, there was a realignment of the indexation to the financial year.
 
LANE: And Labor froze, the policy. I'm sorry, you can't rewrite history.
 
BUTLER: I'm happy to show you the budget paper, Sabra. There was a realignment of a few months to ensure that indexation happened on the 1st of July at the beginning of the financial year. There was no change to yearly indexation under that 2013 Budget. That's a complete misrepresentation. Peter Dutton then came in, tried to put a GP tax in and when he couldn't get that through the Senate, actually froze funding, didn't shift it by a few months to align with the beginning of the financial year, he froze it for six years.
 
LANE: We're out of time. Thanks, Mark Butler for joining AM.
 
BUTLER: Thanks, Sabra.