Radio interview with Minister Butler, ABC Radio National – 10 August 2026

SALLY SARA, HOST: Well, parliamentarians are returning to Canberra this week after the five-week midwinter break. The Government hopes the Coalition will help to pass significant amendments to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which the Government says will reduce the scheme's cost by more than $30 billion over four years. Mark Butler is the Federal Minister for Health, Ageing and the NDIS and joins me in our Parliament House studio this morning. Minister, welcome back. 
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thank you, Sally. 
 
SARA: The Australian Human Rights Commission has called on the Government to, quote: slow down the pace of reform and halt the passage of the NDIS amendment bill until significant human rights concerns around process accountability and the impact of the reforms are addressed. What's your view? 
 
BUTLER: We're watching the Senate inquiry that's still due to report later this week very closely, obviously, watching all of the evidence, and that includes the submissions made by the Human Rights Commission. At the moment, we are still convinced this is the right legislation to pass the Parliament as soon as possible. I'd like to see it passed this fortnight because it is critical we start the work of getting the NDIS back on track. A lot of the reforms that I announced some months ago and are incorporated into this bill take effect over a period of time. For example, the eligibility reforms. I met last week again with a technical advisory group that is doing its work to make sure that this scheme is there for the people for whom it was originally intended. We're working with states on building the Thriving Kids system, and we'll move to other systems of foundational support. 
 
Of course we take all of the evidence seriously. I'm looking forward to the inquiry report being delivered later this week. But I'm still convinced this is the right set of reforms for a critical social program. 
 
SARA: How confident are you can get it through? 
 
BUTLER: We've had very constructive discussions, particularly with the Coalition. I'll talk with them over the course of this week again, but I've been talking with Melissa McIntosh, really, since I made the announcement. She's the Shadow Minister for the NDIS obviously. And Angus Taylor has been very encouraging in his support, his recognition of the need to get the NDIS back on track and clarify some of those things that we've been talking about. Obviously, we've got further discussions to have over the course of this parliamentary sitting fortnight, but I take them at their word that they see this as something we can work together on. 
 
SARA: The Australian Autism Alliance says that people with disability shouldn't be required to find out through lived experience whether replacement systems are ready, pointing to some uncertainty around the Thriving Kids program. Are you confident it will be ready by October? 
 
BUTLER: I am confident it'll be ready to start rolling out from October. Of course, as I said last year and maintain today, children under eight are able to continue to be enrolled in the NDIS in the same way right up to the end of next year. We're going to make absolutely sure, the Prime Minister has said this, I have said this, that no family falls between two stools. No family is left without a system of support that is robust and operating. I’m confident that it can start rolling out in October and will be fully up and running by 1 January 2028, which is when the eligibility changes to the NDIS will take effect. 
 
SARA: We spoke to former NDIA director, Dr Martin Laverty, earlier this morning. He is making the case for a statutory inspector-general for the NDIS, a bit similar to perhaps aged care. What do you think of that proposal? And is there enough coordinated oversight of the scheme for you to achieve your goals of reducing spending, cracking down on fraud and also having consistency with eligibility? 
 
BUTLER: Martin's been around a long time with the NDIS. He was on the board for many years, I think from the first days of the scheme, so I take his advice very seriously. He runs a very large disability organisation now. I'll have a look at his suggestions here. There are a lot of different committees and bodies that oversight the NDIS, so I'd have to be convinced that another one, another level of bureaucracy, would serve a real purpose. That's unlike aged care, which doesn't have quite the same number of statutory safeguards that the NDIS has. What we are focused on is using some of the things we have set up over the last few years, like the Fraud Fusion Taskforce, to introduce better integrity and fraud controls into the scheme, because effectively there were none when we came to Government. The Audit Office itself said that. Whether an inspector-general can add to some of that work that's already delivered by that taskforce, or in terms of safety and quality, delivered by the NDIS Commission, I'd take a little bit of convincing. Of course, I take Martin's advice pretty seriously. 
 
SARA: You're listening to Radio National Breakfast. You're hearing from the Federal Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler. The Government's also trying to find support for its proposed gambling ad reform laws. The Coalition has criticised the absence of measures to tackle so-called inducements. They were hitting the headlines during the inquiry last week, as have the Greens. Is the Government prepared to modify its bill to get it passed during this fortnight? 
 
BUTLER: The evidence last week was pretty shocking and got a lot of coverage and was obviously noticed by all of us, not just the Opposition. The Opposition indicated up to the end of last week they hadn't yet formulated a position, and certainly not a position they'd put to Government. I think Jane Hume, who was the acting Opposition Leader late last week, said they wanted to continue to see the evidence before the inquiry, before they formulated a position to put to us. I'm confident, again, over the course of this sitting fortnight, there will be constructive discussions between the Government and the Opposition about that. Obviously, they need to tell us what it is that they want us to consider. But once they do that, I'm sure we'll give that good consideration. 
 
I know there's been good discussions as well between the Government through Minister Wells and the Greens that have taken a pretty deep interest, and other crossbench members of the parliament as well. We are convinced we need to get this legislation through. It involves a very serious set of major reforms put in place by this Government or proposed by this Government, the likes of which the Federal Parliament's never seen before. We're determined to get these reforms through. 
 
SARA: More broadly, why has it taken so long to get a response here? It was more than 1000 days after the Murphy review before we're getting a response. Now there's been criticism that some of the measures that the Government's proposing don't go far enough. Why has the Government had to wrestle for so long with this issue rather than taking strident action? 
 
BUTLER: We had been taking action before the formal response to that. 
 
SARA: But 1000 days, that's a long time, right? 
 
BUTLER: We were taking action during those 1000 days, more action than previous federal government had ever taken, really action targeted particularly at problem gambling, at gambling harm. You see that in the ads that you'll see on TV. You'll see that in the BetStop system that has been put in place, and much more robust now. It's not as if we were sitting on our hands. We were putting in place very significant protections against gambling harm, but at the same time thinking through what a balanced response to the broader recommendations, the more ambitious recommendations from that inquiry report, would look like, taking into account the need to maintain a robust sporting system, broadcaster interests, while also always keeping an eye on the protection against gambling harm. I think this package has achieved that balance. It's very ambitious. If parliamentarians, particularly the Opposition and crossbench, have some ideas about improving that, we'll work through that in the deliberate way that you'd expect. 
 
SARA: What are the benefits to community safety and for the lives of problem gamblers to allow inducements to continue? 
 
BUTLER: Obviously inducements got a lot of attention last week. I'd be surprised if they weren't the subject of discussion over the course of this fortnight. 
 
SARA: Minister, your Opposition counterpart, Anne Ruston, has accused some Labor MPs of bullying GPs in their electorates to bulk bill, despite the fact that health department modelling suggests some GP practices would be worse off. Are you pursuing a headline about bulk billing at the expense of addressing underlying financial pressure in the system? 
 
BUTLER: No, the money we've put into Medicare is quite unprecedented. We've increased the general Medicare rebate by levels not seen in decades, and on top of that put a record investment particularly targeted at turning bulk billing around, and it's working. The data that I've released this morning shows that we're well ahead of schedule in terms of our target of a 90 per cent bulk billing rate at the end of this decade. The bulk billing rate for pensioners and Australians with a concession card is now comfortably over 93 per cent again, so that's terrific for that group of low and fixed income Australians. 
 
The really pleasing thing about the data I've released this morning is that you're seeing the bulk billing rate for people who don't have a concession card, often not on high incomes, that bulk billing rate has climbed dramatically over the last eight or nine months, since October only last year, by more than 10 per cent across the country. In some parts of Australia like the Illawarra, the Northern Territory, Northern Tasmania, Bendigo by more than 30 per cent, in those other regions by more than 20 per cent. That means millions and millions of additional free visits to the doctor. It means people can go to the doctor when they feel they need to rather than when they feel they can afford a gap fee. 
 
SARA: Mark Butler, thank you for joining me. 
 
BUTLER: Thanks, Sally.