Radio interview with Minister Butler, ABC Radio Sydney – 11 December 2025

HAMISH MACDONALD, HOST: First though, the Federal Government made an election promise, which I’m sure you’ll remember well, to roll out 50 Urgent Care Clinics across the country to take pressure off hospital emergency departments. Yesterday, the new Bureau of Health Information statistics showed the enormous pressure on emergency departments is continuing to grow. The median time from arrival to departure is now three hours and 54 minutes – that’s the longest waiting time since reporting began back in 2010.
 
Given the state of the health sector and the very busy Christmas period, we wanted to check in with the Federal Health Minister, particularly because there is a big meeting happening tomorrow between the state governments and the Commonwealth when it comes to the health funding agreement. Mark Butler is here. Good morning to you, Mark Butler.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Good morning, Hamish.
 
MACDONALD: First, can you tell us about these Urgent Care Clinics open in Sydney? They're in Marrickville, Burwood and Rouse Hill.
 
BUTLER: That's right. There are 10 that are opening in New South Wales over the coming weeks, part of the 50 we promised at the last election. When they're all open, the network of almost 140 clinics across the country will see as many as two million patients every single year. They're open seven days a week, extended hours, and importantly, they're fully bulk-billed. They're there for high-quality urgent care where people need to be seen immediately but don't necessarily have to go to a fully equipped hospital. Those stats you talked about around emergency department activity, we're seeing right across the country. What we are seeing is some of the less serious presentations where, for example, if your kid fell off a skateboard on Saturday afternoon and broke their wrist, instead of those people having to go to the local emergency department, they're able to go to one of these Urgent Care Clinics and get high-quality urgent care, taking pressure off the hospital, but also delivering a quicker and better service for people who have those types of non-life-threatening emergencies.
 
MACDONALD: Can we just be specific, though, for Sydney listeners? Those three I mentioned, they're open as of now, are they?
 
BUTLER: No, they're opening at different times, but they'll be very clearly advertised. By the end of January, pretty much all of them. I promised by the end of June next year, but we've been able to get through the process pretty quickly. A really high level of interest from local general practices to take on this extra funding and expand their operations to become a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic.
 
MACDONALD: So you're saying that by the end of January, all 10 in Sydney will be open?
 
BUTLER: Not just in Sydney. They're in New South Wales.
 
MACDONALD: Okay.
 
BUTLER: There's one on the Central Coast, and I can't remember all 10 of them off the top of my head, but all of them will be open by the end of January.
 
MACDONALD: We spoke to the state's Health Minister yesterday, and there's a suite of challenges facing Sydney and New South Wales hospitals. Obviously, as you're pointing out, this might have some impact on those sort of lower scale presentations in the hospital system. But the Health Minister here points to bed block being caused by the lack of availability in aged care and also the changes within the NDIS. Do you accept that this Commonwealth's responsibility is having a flow-on impact in Sydney's hospitals?
 
BUTLER: It's not just New South Wales Right across the country – right across the world – given the ageing of that post-war baby boom, our hospital systems are facing pressure. The health systems generally are facing pressure, and so we're trying to work cooperatively with states to relieve pressure across a range of areas. We've talked about Urgent Care Clinics. We've funded New South Wales and other states to put in place other programs to divert older people from hospitals if possible. For example, to have them looked after in the aged care facility instead of put in an ambulance and transported to ED. But Minister Park is right that there is also some pressure at the back end, if you like, with older people who are ready to leave hospital not necessarily being able to find a bed. In part, that's because we're not building enough beds. The system has not been what they describe as investable to build the new beds. But frankly, we're having some challenges with planning approvals, including here in New South Wales. We've approved over the last several years almost 500 new beds in the Illawarra region, which is one of the highly pressured regions. Not one of them is open because they haven't been able to get development approvals through the Wollongong City Council. There are a range of pressures. They're not all the Commonwealth's responsibility.
 
MACDONALD: Understood.
 
BUTLER: Although, state governments often make it sound like they are. We've got to work cooperatively to deal with this.
 
MACDONALD: Just need to try and disaggregate some of this, though, for listeners who, I guess, interact with the system all the time. Is it fair, given that you acknowledge that, that the Prime Minister has written to the states telling them they've got to get people out of the hospital system, they've got to reduce the amount that they're spending in order to get the Commonwealth funding that had already been promised?
 
BUTLER: We've lifted New South Wales hospital funding this year by 11 per cent. I don't know when New South Wales last got an increase of that magnitude.
 
MACDONALD: But the Commonwealth has written this letter to the states putting pressure on them to reduce, I guess, the traffic through the hospital and reduce their own costs. But you're acknowledging that things like the aged care system are actually keeping people in that hospital system.
 
BUTLER: I'd be surprised if any Health Minister could put their hand on their heart and say that every single hospital is operating as efficiently as they could. We only saw a report by the Grattan Institute in the last fortnight pointing out ways in which we can make our hospital system more efficient and more effective. We're looking at that in primary care, we're looking at it in aged care, we're looking at in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It's incumbent on state governments to make sure that all of their hospital systems are operating as efficiently and effectively as possible. Are their digital systems up to scratch? Are their patient flow systems up to scratch? I think we're doing our bit. We want work cooperatively to make sure at a time of huge increasing pressure on all of our health and aged care systems, we are getting the best bang for every single dollar that taxpayers put into the system. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to do. State governments tell us all the time we need to do better in areas of our responsibility – of course that's incumbent on them as well.
 
MACDONALD: You're meeting with the state and territory health ministers tomorrow. This is where it's hoped that there will be an agreement. You have said in the past a deal will be done this year. Are you still confident of that?
 
BUTLER: I think there's still a good chance of that. The deal won't be done between Health Ministers. The deal will be done between Premiers and the Prime Minister because it doesn't just cover hospitals. We're also dealing with a range of disability-related issues and the work that I've announced six months or so ago around Thriving Kids. But there are very good levels of discussion going on. Our officials all met again for a full day on Monday, a very high level, the Heads of Premiers’ Departments, the Heads of Treasury. I still feel confident we can get there by the end of the year.
 
MACDONALD: We've heard in New South Wales the State Government's very unclear about what they'll be forced to absorb terms of the Thriving Kids program. I mean, there's a huge amount of ambiguity around that. Have you progressed that to a point where the states understand what they'd be expected to do and are willing to do that?
 
BUTLER: I think you need to recognise the media commentary often, or the media commentary from Ministers is often quite different to the background negotiations that are going on very constructively in a really positive way. Thriving Kids is a new program. Of course, we're working hard with states, but also with communities and providers of services to ensure we get that design right. I had a full day meeting with our Thriving Kids Advisory Group on Tuesday, which includes state representation. Progress is being made there, but it is a big, complex deal we have to land. That's why premiers, chief ministers and the Prime Minister himself are engaged in it.
 
MACDONALD: Very quickly Mark Butler, we've got to get to Kellie Sloane in just a moment, but I'm getting lots of texts from people asking about x-ray capacity in these Urgent Care Clinics. Is that something that is offered, or not?
 
BUTLER: They're required to have access to imaging and pathology as much as possible on site, or at least within a very reasonable distance, so a couple of hundred metres or so, and for that to be bulk billed. That's very much a part of their contract.
 
MACDONALD: And that's on weekends as well? I mean, I don't know that you could specifically answer that in all of these instances, but that seems to be on people's minds this morning.
 
BUTLER: That's right. That is a very important part of the service. This is still a new model of care for Australia. It's only been operating for a couple of years. For some services, they're building that capacity over time. But the idea is that there's a one-stop service, if not on-site then very close, seven days a week, extended hours, so people don't have to end up at hospital emergency departments.
 
MACDONALD: Mark Butler, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
 
BUTLER: Thanks, Hamish.