Radio interview with Minister Butler, ABC Melbourne – 5 June 2025

ALI MOORE, HOST: It was yesterday that the Government announced they have delayed changes to aged care reforms - they were going to come in July, they’re now not coming in until November. So, if you are trying to get someone, well, not just into aged care, but maybe you're trying to get a Home Care Package, what does it mean for you and do you welcome that delay? Mark Butler is the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Mark Butler, welcome to Drive.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thank you, Ali.
 
MOORE: You have delayed, as I just said, the changes, but it was just, well, it's just three weeks, really, before they were due to start. When did it become clear that it wasn't going to work?
 
BUTLER: We were getting briefings after the election. We'd obviously been working pretty hard on this in the months leading into the election. It's a very big change. These are really once in a generation reforms. It requires a lot of change to systems and IT on our part as the government but also, importantly, on the part of providers as well. Then on top of that, you want providers to be having conversations with residents and with older Australians.
 
We had compressed this into a relatively short time frame and I'm happy to talk about why we did that. But when we came back from the election, we tested a number of the systems. We were listening to providers and consumer organisations, so organisations talking on behalf of older Australians themselves. And over the last seven to 10 days before we actually announced the decision, it became pretty clear to us that it would be in everyone's interest for a short delay. It's only four months, but you'll see that delay has been welcomed by the organisations representing older Australians, but also organisations representing the providers themselves.
 
MOORE: So, when will those providers get the rules under which the legislation is going to be enforced? Because, right now, they've only got drafted rules, and the point that's been made to me is that it's pretty hard to sign an agreement with a new client with, you know, to bring someone in new when you actually don't have the rules under which you're going to be operating.
 
BUTLER: They've been rolling out, really, on an ongoing basis since the legislation was passed. We prioritise the most important rules and even though the caretaker officials are working very hard on continuing to write and consult on those rules as well We're very confident that by 1 November we'll be very much in a position to introduce this new system, which is going to be enormously important to older Australians.
 
But I've also made the point over the last few years that we recognise that we've expected a lot of aged care providers and other organisations representing older Australians in a relatively short timeframe, because we've had to compress a lot of reform into a relatively short period of time. And the reason for that, really, is we've needed to get the aged care system ready for a very big increase in demand that's really already upon us. And I think we've known that the ageing of the baby boomer generation was going to lead to a big increase in demand for aged care services. The oldest baby boomers are turning 80 this year. That means they're already, on average, ready for home care and, in the next two or three years, they'll start entering residential care in very big numbers as well. A lot of this work should have been done over the last decade [indistinct]-
 
MOORE: Sure but can I just get back to that question? I'm just curious. We're going to start in November now -  
 
BUTLER: Yeah.
 
MOORE: and you say that they've been rolling out the rules but, as I understand it, they only have draft rules. So, when will the new rules for new agreements under the new system be in place?
 
BUTLER: Different rules have been rolling out at different times. We've been rolling them out, frankly, over the last several months since the legislation was passed before the end of last year. It really depends on which ones you're talking about. But, having talked to the providers, we're very confident, as well as the representatives of older Australians, that everyone will be in a very clearly comfortable position well before 1 November.
 
MOORE: Okay. And you just said yourself too that there's, you know, obviously, there's huge demand and it is already upon you. Part of the reforms that you announced was a big increase in Home Care Packages to cut waiting times - they were due to be released on 1 July. Will that still happen or are they, that extra boost in resources, also going to have to wait till November?
 
BUTLER: There's a very big increase budgeted over coming years, but particularly over the next two years, so from 25 into 27. There's the biggest number of additional home care packages ever, what we'll call Support at Home Packages and there's still the money available for those, about 107,000 additional packages from memory. They'll still roll out over the course of the next 24 months, and they won't start until 1 November.
 
But I'll make the point that we are still in the process of rolling out new Home Care Packages that was in the mid-year budget review in December. We’ve been able to -
 
MOORE: But you've got 85,000 people on the waiting list.
 
BUTLER: That's right, and we are having to add numbers every single budget. We've done it in December, they're still rolling out those additional packages. We're still right now, as I speak, adding new packages to the system from a decision we took five or six months ago in the mid-year budget review, and we'll start doing that in the second half of this year again.
 
MOORE: But I guess all the, I mean, you know this better than anyone, that all the money in the world doesn't necessarily fix the problem. For example, Carol in Glenaire says: “I was approved three years ago for this service. This is a Commonwealth Home Support program, which is the, you know, the old program - when I ring the agencies in my area they say they don't have any vacancies due to lack of funding. And Carol's in Glenaire, she's not even in, you know, regional Victoria.
 
BUTLER: Yeah. The Home Support program's a little bit different, that's continuing on the same basis. But that's more, that's quite different services to home care. A lot of that is meals on wheels, might be cleaning services, gardening services, transport services, things like that. We’re continuing that program -
 
MOORE: Well, that cleaning and gardening is part of what will now require co-payments in the home packages.
 
BUTLER: Yeah. But I make the point that program, the Home Support Program, is continuing, for the time being, on the same basis that it did last year. The new program is for home care, which is more targeted personal and nursing care services who have a higher level of need. That is the new program that starts over the coming months. Look, I recognise -
 
MOORE: So, will Carol have more chance of getting someone under the new program? She's clearly had no chance under the old one.
 
BUTLER: I don't know what service Carol is really after. It may well be a service that is continued to be delivered under the home support program that's not changing right now. It will probably change in a couple of years' time, but that's a different type of program that provides, as the name suggests, more sort of basic home support rather than personal and nursing care for people who have higher levels of need.
 
But I'll make the point, look, I recognise that we are trying to expand both of these programs and residential care, so the old nursing homes, as quickly as we possibly can. Partly that's about allocating money in the budgets. And we've been expanding aged care budgets over the last few years enormously, but we've also had to recognise we need the workers there.
 
It’s all well and good for a Minister to stand up at a press conference and say that they’re having a certain number of nursing home beds or home care packages. But we've also had to pay a lot of attention to lifting the wages of these staff so that organisations can actually attract the workers and keep them over the long term, and we've had enormous success doing that over the last two or three years.
 
MOORE: Sure. Mark Butler, just another question on this issue. We’ve been- we had a chat about it earlier in the program, but when it comes to some of these co-payments for Home Care Packages, clinical services you don't make a home care payment for but you do for things like cleaning and gardening and you do for showering. Is that really something that you are comfortable putting into the co-payment sector given that if you can't afford to pay, yes, you can apply for a hardship assistance, but everyone says that takes a very long time. And the last thing you want is pensioners to say, well, actually, I won't seek help on that front because I can't afford that $5 to have a shower.
 
BUTLER: We've thought about this very carefully and we did a lot of work with the sector on a new, fair, sustainable system of means testing. First of all, I make the point that some services that previously people might have been charged for are now going to be free, that is particularly clinical services. We took the view that they’re sort of like Medicare - they should be free for people.
 
But then there are these services that aren't strictly clinical, they're obviously important. Showering is one of them that you've talked about, where people have the ability, should make some contribution. Now, that contribution depends on your financial circumstances, it will be relatively modest. If you're a full pensioner, it will increase according to your income. We’ve thought about this carefully though -
 
MOORE: I take your point there, but what we were hearing was that if you can't afford to pay, if you're assessed as being not able to pay, it's quite a lengthy, time-consuming, and difficult process to be assessed for hardship. And the concern is that pensioners will simply fall through the cracks, they just won't ask for the service because they can't pay for it. Do you worry about that?
 
BUTLER: Of course, we do worry about that, and we think about it very carefully when we balance the contributions that we ask people to make. They are modest if you are a pensioner. Of course, as this system continues to roll out, if the hardship arrangements end up being too clunky, we'll look at that. We'll try and make that much more streamlined.
 
We want to provide as much care and support as we possibly can to older Australians. We recognise they worked hard for decades and paid their taxes and deserve that care and support. We’ve got to make sure the system is sustainable for long term, given the sheer numbers of people who are going to be requiring those services and supports in the future. We think we've got the balance right, but of course, as it rolls out, we'll monitor it very closely.
 
MOORE: Mark Butler, if I could just ask you another question. Yesterday, we got the details of how our tobacco licencing scheme is going to work here in Victoria, but we also had a call suggesting that the sellers of illegal tobacco and vapes have actually adapted their business model. Can I just play you a little bit of Sam from Rye? This is what he had to say.
 
[Excerpt]
 
CALLER: I had a guy come into my business presenting himself as a sales representative and then handed over a sheet of vapes and tobacco and boxes of tobacco or cases for $100 and all the different brands.
 
[End of excerpt]
 
MOORE: That was Sam, Minister, and he doesn't run a business where he would be buying things to put on his shelf. He actually runs a panel shop, so it was more like a private arrangement. Do you worry that maybe there's not going to be any shops to raid, that they've changed the business model, they're doing a more door-to-door thing?
 
BUTLER: Yeah, of course I do. I worry about this a lot. Because I know these forces are determined and they're resilient, and they’re going to make a lot of money out of this. Whether you're talking about Big Tobacco or organised crime, which essentially are the two big players behind these industries, these markets, I've never underestimated the challenge in winning this fight. I'm also determined to continue the fight, though. And what we are finding is -
 
MOORE: Sure, but are you aware of them turning to door-to-door?
 
BUTLER: I hadn't heard that. I hadn't heard that. That's the first report I've heard of door-to-door. What I am hearing, particularly in the vaping sector, is that we are making a real difference. Vaping rates among young people are down markedly. School suspensions, in the reports I've seen, are down as much as 50 per cent, school suspensions due to vaping. That was really the target cohort.
 
I was really focused on turning around the pretty terrifying numbers around vaping. Vaping stores are closing, the price is increasing, we're seizing millions of them at the border. But the fight's not over on vaping. I know the fight is even harder in relation to illicit cigarettes, but we can't just raise the white flag. They will adapt, they will do new things like what your caller has just reported. We've just got to continue to take the fight up. It's that important -
 
MOORE: So, when it comes to taking up the fight, our 14 enforcement officers will be on the streets in Victoria from February. We have something like 1,300 standalone tobacco stores, according to police. Fourteen enforcement officers, the numbers don't seem to sort of add up there. Would you agree?
 
BUTLER: I'm only starting to read what the Victorian Government has announced. I really welcome the fact they've introduced a licencing system. We’ve seen that in New South Wales too, and I think that will make intelligence gathering much easier for the state authorities. We're certainly, I think, doing our share of lifting resources into enforcement, whether that's at the border or also helping states share intelligence and providing funding to states to start prosecuting these people once you identify them.
 
We've just got to start making the price of engaging in this activity so high that people think twice about whether or not they do it. But we've got a meeting of health ministers next week. I'm told that some jurisdictions want to raise the sort of the range of responses we've taken to tobacco control. That will be an opportunity, I guess, for states to share some of their experiences. Here in my state of South Australia -
 
MOORE: And maybe ask for some more money, I'm sure.
 
BUTLER: That wouldn't necessarily surprise me if that happened. But here in South Australia where I am, there have been a range of other disincentives, a range of closure powers that the South Australian Government now has. That means they're shutting these stores either for short term periods for lower-level offences or for quite long times if people are quite determined to try and make money out of something that is illegal.
 
MOORE: South Australia also has, proportionally, many more enforcement officers, and we don't have those closure powers either. It could be an interesting conversation around the table with the health ministers next week. Mark Butler, I really appreciate you joining us. Thank you.
 
BUTLER: My pleasure.