Radio interview with Minister Butler, ABC Radio National – 2 September 2025

SALLY SARA, HOST: Cheaper medicines will soon be available after legislation passed the Senate last night. From January, you’ll pay no more than $25 for a drug listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, or $7.70 if you’re a pensioner or concession cardholder. Mark Butler is the Federal Minister for Health and Ageing, and the Minister for Disability and the NDIS, and joins me now. Minister, welcome back to Breakfast.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thanks so much.
 
SARA: Just before we get to the PBS, on the issue of home care, is it acceptable that 200,000 Australians, senior Australians, are waiting for home care packages and/or assessments?
 
BUTLER: We want to get those waiting lists down as much as we possibly can. We’re getting good reductions in the assessment waiting list, and delivering more home care packages if we can get legislation through the Senate, a new system of home care packages that I think will deliver better home care arrangements in the home not just care, but also access to assistive technology, access to support for palliative care in the home. Too often people have to go to a pretty sterile hospital environment for their last days.
 
There are really significant challenges in introducing this new scheme, a whole new aged care system. At the same time, we’re seeing demand skyrocket for aged care because of the ageing, particularly of the baby boomer generation.
 
SARA: We knew that was coming though, didn’t we?
 
BUTLER: We knew that was coming, which is why we had to compress really what should have been a decade of reform in aged care into 3 short years in the last term of government. Our former aged care minister, Anika Wells did a terrific job at doing that. I know it put a lot of pressure on providers to really lift their game and change their systems in a relatively short period of time. But I want to do everything we can to get those waiting lists down. People who are of that age have worked hard, paid their taxes. They deserve really high-quality aged care.
 
SARA: Have they been let down?
 
BUTLER: I want to see people get that care as quickly as we possibly can. We've got to get more packages out into the system. When we get them there, we've got to have the workers to staff it. That has been a problem in the past, which is why we worked hard to lift their wages and improve the recruitment and retention of aged care staff. But look, I'm not going to pretend to your listeners, Sally, that this is going to be easy. For years and years to come, we're going to have a huge increase every single year in demand for aged care. You're right, this was not a surprise. We knew the baby boomers were going to age and my generation, Gen X, will age after them. We're going to need vastly more aged care services, vastly more aged care facilities, which aren't being built at the pace I'd like to see them being built right now. But I can assure you it is a core part of our government's agenda.
 
SARA: Why can't you release more home packages now? Why does it need to wait until November?
 
BUTLER: They need to be, this is a new system. This is not just about the release of new packages. We are –
 
SARA: The new system is an issue. The sector has said, hang on with that. They agree with the delay. But when it comes to pushing packages out now, now, they said they're ready to go.
 
BUTLER: A relatively short delay. Really, 4 months we’ve pushed the new system down the road from the 1 July to 1 November. As you say, the sector wanted it. They didn't think they were ready to do 1 July.
 
SARA: But in terms of getting stuff out the door now, they say they can do it.
 
BUTLER: Yeah, we're rolling about 2,000 vacant packages out into the system every single week. I want to get to 1 November and get those new packages into the system as well. We've got to get the legislation through the Senate though. And that's what I'm determined to do this week. We've waited too long for a 21st century system of aged care that I'm confident is going to meet the needs of older Australians into the future. It was hard work to get it through the parliament in its first iteration last year. I pay credit to Anne Ruston and the Opposition's willingness to negotiate constructively with us on that. We've now got to get this last part of the legislation through the parliament this week, because if we don't, we will not be able to introduce the new system on 1 November.
 
SARA: What do the department's figures tell you about how many senior Australians will die waiting for assessments and packages between now and November?
 
BUTLER: We can't predict something like that, Sally. We can't predict whether people will live a certain period or die at a certain time.
 
SARA: We know from the averages.
 
BUTLER: We know that, unfortunately, for as long as this system has been in place, tragically, people will die on a waitlist for surgery, for home care, for entry to an aged care facility. We've got that tragic number down substantially, by about 40 per cent from its peak a few years ago. But every death while waiting for any procedure, whether it's an aged care procedure or a hospital procedure, is a tragedy and a very strong signal we've got to do better. We're putting every piece of energy that we can muster into building that better aged care system for a growing number of Australians.
 
SARA: You're listening to Radio National Breakfast. My guest is the Health Minister, Mark Butler. If we're looking at cheaper medicines, now that legislation has passed on cheaper medicines, when will that pricing come into force?
 
BUTLER: 1 January next year, and I prefer to describe it as even cheaper medicines because this is now the fifth wave of cheaper medicines policies under our government. The first 4 waves have already saved Australians $1.5 billion at the pharmacy counter. This latest wave will mean that maximum co-payment for general patients will be slashed to just $25. That's where it was back in 2004. Also what we've done is to freeze the price that pensioners will pay for the remainder of the decade at just a bit over $7 as well, and we're doing this because obviously it's good for cost-of-living pressure on households, so it's an important cost-of-living relief, but it's also good for their health. It means people are more likely to fill those scripts that their doctor have said is important for their health.
 
SARA: If we're looking at the issue of tariffs and pharmaceuticals, have you got any more clarity on what's happening in the US?
 
BUTLER: The honest answer to that is no. What we do know is that the Trump Administration, perhaps unsurprisingly, is focused on trying to get their drug prices, their medicine prices down. The patients in America pay some of the highest prices for medicines, as your listeners probably know, in the world. But quite how they're going to do that, what the impact for the rest of the world would be, is something we're still, as every other country is trying to do, trying to understand a little bit better. I'm talking with industry very regularly. I've got a meeting with all of the industry CEOs tomorrow as it happens. They're all coming to Canberra for a conference as well to better understand this. Our officials are doing that as well over in the US. But I guess what I want to reassure your listeners is that our lodestar here, our northern star, is pretty straightforward. We are determined to protect our PBS. It's served this country well for 8 decades, access to the best medicines available on the planet at affordable prices, and we will not be negotiating on those elements.
 
SARA: Just a final issue on changes to the NDIS particularly when it comes to children with mild developmental delays and autism. Yesterday I spoke with Jordon Steele-John, the Greens Senator and spokesperson for the Greens on disability and the NDIS yesterday. This is what he had to say.
 
[Excerpt]
 
SENATOR JORDON STEELE-JOHN: Right now the services that kids are receiving through the NDIS are changing lives. These are therapies and supports that are enabling people to go to school, to communicate with their families. They are individualised and they are flexible.
 
[End of excerpt]
 
SARA: The Senator says that there's been little consultation about some of these changes. What consultation did you have before making this announcement?
 
BUTLER: This was a decision taken by all governments back at the end of 2023. And there have been different types of consultation undertaken by state governments over the course of the intervening more than 18 months. I think 3,000 to 4,000 people have participated in those consultations. I took a view, our government took a view that it was important for the federal government to lean into this more heavily rather than trying to build eight different systems to support kids with those mild to moderate needs. Having a nationally consistent system with the Commonwealth leaning in with funding support would deliver a better outcome. And I think you've seen the response from stakeholders to reflect that. In many cases stakeholders were saying they were concerned at the prospect of eight different systems.
 
We've got a lot of work to do here. I've said that we're going to pull together an advisory group to work on this. There'll be a lot more consultation over coming months. But I don't accept what the senator says. For 18 months, people have been talking about this. We just had to get on and start delivering something.
 
SARA: On specialist fees, we've done a few interviews in the past week on this issue. Former Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, raised concerns on Breakfast about the increasing trend of administrative fees being included in bills, particularly for anaesthetists. Do you share those concerns and does the government have a view about cracking down on that at all?
 
BUTLER: Yeah, I think Dr Coatsworth has really put his thumb on something significant out there and people are talking about this at barbecues, at social gatherings. This is becoming a core conversation of people about their access to healthcare, which is why before the election I said that we were determined to start to act on it. We've been focused over the last few years on bulk billing for general practice visits. Specialist fees are starting to get out of control in some parts of the country. They're highly variable. Some specialists are charging very, very high fees, much higher than, you know, a specialist just around the corner of the same quality.
 
SARA: And these administrative fees in particular, if you're being charged for an anaesthetic hundreds or more for administrative fees, is that on from the government's view?
 
BUTLER: I just don't think it's the right thing to do. The first thing we've got to do is get more transparency into the system, which is why we've decided to junk the previous government's idea of a voluntary opt-in system.
 
SARA: That didn’t work.
 
BUTLER: It was hopeless. Only a few dozen out of tens and tens of thousands of specialists actually uploaded their fees. We're going to make it mandatory. We have access to their fees now, so we're going to build our own website and put everyone's fees on. If you're planning some knee surgery –
 
SARA: When will that happen?
 
BUTLER: We're going to have to get legislation through the parliament. We're starting to consult about that. I’ve talked to the AMA about that.
 
SARA: Are you meeting with the specialist groups about this, the colleges and others?
 
BUTLER: Yep, I've spoken to the AMA about that. I addressed all of the presidents of all of the colleges in Melbourne last week, I think, maybe the week before. I've made it very clear this is a core part of our agenda for our second term of government. We've got to get laws through the parliament. We've got to build the website. But people deserve to know if you're planning a knee surgery or planning a birth at a private hospital with private specialists, how much you're going to be out of pocket.
 
SARA: Mark Butler, thanks for your time this morning.
 
BUTLER: Thanks very much.