JULES SCHILLER, CO-HOST: We're joined now by the Federal Health Minister, Mark Butler. Welcome, Mark Butler.
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Thank you very much.
SCHILLER: How do you feel when you wake up this morning and note that when people pick up the paper, the main thing they'll take away from your budget is that two pandas will be earning almost $15,000 a week?
BUTLER: I hadn't done that maths but look for at least a couple of decades now the investment that federal governments of both political persuasions and state governments have made to the pandas at Adelaide Zoo has been a really significant boost for the economy in South Australia.
SCHILLER: But we're having people on the tax line offering to dress up in a panda suit, to do it for a lot cheaper than that, to maybe funnel money into more worthy causes?
BUTLER: Yeah, I've read stories about that happening at other zoos around the world. It works for a couple of days, but ultimately you get found out. We've gone for the real deal. The real pandas. The only ones in Australia when they first came, you'll remember they were the only ones in the southern hemisphere. I remember the business case being done. I was part of the Tourism Commission Board and there was a really significant boost to tourism from having that attraction at the Adelaide Zoo. Of course, we looked at it again as any responsible government would do but we think it's a really significant and positive investment.
SONYA FELDHOFF, CO-HOST: How does that compare, though, to $10 per person in tax relief? And that's over a few years, not every week?
BUTLER: This is a modest budget but we think responsible top up to the tax cut we delivered last year for every single Australian. Taken as a package, the average Australian will be about $2,500 a year, better off, about $50 a week. The significant thing that we did was make sure every Australian got a tax cut. I'm not sure whether that's why the Liberal Party is opposing these again, as they did last year when we made that announcement. Overall, the investment is about $17 billion.
FELDHOFF: But according to social service and anti-poverty groups, that goes to a bit to everybody, but not to those people who really need it. They say it's an irresponsible budget that we should have been looking at JobSeeker. Why was that not considered again this time?
BUTLER: We made a significant investment in JobSeeker early in our term. We've made the two biggest investments to Commonwealth rent assistance in 30 years, which particularly benefits the cohort and the community that those groups are talking about. But we've had a focus in our cost-of-living relief, our responsible relief, whether it's the tax cuts or energy bill relief, on making sure that all households get support. That's been an approach we've consistently taken over the three years of our government.
FELDHOFF: Let's talk about the energy rebate. Who actually gets that? Will this work as the previous energy rebate worked?
BUTLER: It does. Every household gets this relief. This in part reflects our approach, at a time of really significant global inflation pressure, the government should provide as much broad support to households as possible. But also, frankly, the only practical way in which we can give energy bill relief is either we only give it to people on essentially concession cards, or we give it to everyone. Now, if you only give it to people on concession cards, there's a whole range of middle Australian households who, frankly, are under very significant pressure from cost-of-living. We decided over the last couple of years we'd deliver the relief to every household, and we're continuing that approach again.
SCHILLER: It's not just middle-income earners. I mean, Gina Rinehart gets $150 off her power bill. So does Andrew Twiggy Forrest. So does Clive Palmer. I mean, couldn't you view of maybe isolated the high-income earners and put more of that money into middle?
BUTLER: Just practically no. The answer is no frankly. As I said, the only way we can deliver energy bill relief is either we only deliver it to people on a concession card or we deliver it to everyone. Yes, there are some people at the top of the income spectrum who get this. But at the end of the day, we were focused on making sure that middle Australia gets relief as well. That's been our approach in cheaper medicines policy. People who usually just fall the wrong side of the threshold that give them concessions, but who are doing it really tough at the moment.
SCHILLER: Can I ask about the black hole in your budget because of tobacco excise? Now you have continually put up the tobacco excise. We learnt that this has cost the federal government and also us taxpayers $7 billion over five years. We know a lot of that money now has gone to organised crime organisations. And because of that we have to spend even more money on Border Force and also police enforcement. Do you now admit that this is a policy failure, that we're not stopping people smoking? All it is doing is costing other taxpayers who don't smoke billions of dollars?
BUTLER: No, I don't accept that. I do accept we've got a very serious problem with organised crime getting their mitts into illicit tobacco, but also into vapes as well. But this is a global phenomenon. If you look at countries like the US that have very significantly lower prices for their legal cigarettes than Australia does, they also have organised crime in this market. This idea that we lower the legal price of cigarettes a little bit, that will just push organised crime out of the illicit tobacco market is rubbish. It doesn't bear analysis anywhere in the world. The only answer to this is to take them on. Is to basically boost enforcement resources, end up putting them in the dock and take the sort of action that, frankly, I think the South Australian government is leading the nation on.
FELDHOFF: Minister, Bud has texted us, he says “the government are taking tobacco consumers for idiots. I'm on a low income and I was going broke before each payday. Even if illegal tobacco shops are shut down, don't forget that some people deliver and will go deeper underground. The government only has themselves to blame.”
BUTLER: Look the very clear view of all of the tobacco control experts is that the most significant tool in the toolbox to cut smoking rates in the community is price. It's not the only one, but it is the most significant one, which is why -
FELDHOFF: But it's not working. They're getting cheaper tobacco elsewhere?
BUTLER: There is still an organised crime market that is selling illegal cigarettes, as there is in pretty much every single country in the world, regardless of the price of their legal cigarettes. And that's because this is a very significant source of revenue to bankroll the other criminal activities that organised crime do. But I just don't understand what the view, of people who take this approach is, do we halve the price of legal cigarettes? Because I can tell you, I can point to country after country that has much cheaper legal cigarettes, still has organised crime, but has much higher rates of smoking.
SCHILLER: Well, why have you frozen the excise on beer then? I mean, if you're saying that the best way to reduce social harms is to increase an excise on an item that does cause, you know, the health system to buckle. And we know that alcohol, you know, feeds into domestic violence and the health system. Why have you frozen that on beer?
BUTLER: That's a modest one-off tourism and hospitality related venture. What we're talking about, as you know, is, a long-term effort to drive down smoking rates, which still kills more than 20,000 Australians every year. Now we have some of the lowest smoking rates in the world -
SCHILLER: But I'm asking about alcohol though?
BUTLER: And higher cigarette prices in the world and that is not a coincidence. It's been a product of deliberate effort by, frankly, governments of both political persuasions.
FELDHOFF: With us today is the Federal Health Minister, South Australian MP for Hindmarsh, Mark Butler. Linda has given us a ring from Aberfoyle Park. Hello, Linda.
LINDA, CALLER: Hello. I actually rang the radio station last week about this very thing. I didn't hear the word aged pensioners or the term in this budget at all. When we were giving the given the princely amount of $4.60 per fortnight, $2.30 a week, which is going to help my cost-of-living enormously not. And then so all the people who are working are getting a tax cut. We're getting all of these other things happening. We keep getting told that we're going to get bulk billed when we go to the doctors. Four out of five people do not get bulk billed. In fact, there is only one person in my cohort of people that does get bulk billed and their place doesn't take patients.
FELDHOFF: Alright, Linda, thank you for your call. Mark Butler, JobSeeker wasn't addressed, aged pension wasn't addressed. Some of the people that need these things the most?
BUTLER: Our cost-of-living relief applies very much to pensioners. I challenged the figure there about bulk billing. The fact is we tripled the bulk billing incentive pay to GPs to bulk bill pensioners the year before last has driven a big increase in bulk billing for pensioners. More than 6 million additional free visits to the doctor last year. And now the bulk billing rate for pensioners across the country is comfortably north of 90 per cent, so nine out of ten, and what we're doing now is extending that to other people in the community. As I said, the big increase in Commonwealth rent assistance really benefits a lot of pensioners, hundreds of thousands of pensioners who aren't able to get into public housing and are really, frankly, at the mercy of private rental markets. We're helping them. We've frozen the price of medicines for pensioners all the way into the 2030s so there'll be no increase in medicine prices. Yes, there's always more that we could do. But we've been very focused on making sure that we get as much cost-of-living relief as we responsibly tend to Australia's pensioners.
SCHILLER: When I picked up The Age this morning, there was a headline saying on this occasion, Victorian voters have little cause to complain. I'm sure voters in New South Wales and Queensland might feel that they don't have much cause for complaint, because they're getting billions of dollars in new infrastructure. We've only got $125 million announced for Curtis Road. I mean, as one of the most senior Labor federal figures in this state, do you think that our state's being shortchanged?
BUTLER: No, I just think the journalists who wrote that didn't read the budget papers properly. What is happening over the next four years is that about 1 in 9 dollars that we're spending on infrastructure is being spent in South Australia. South Australia has about 1 in 14 people in the country. They're getting 1 in 9 dollars. We're spending billions of dollars that's already rolling out, particularly for the Darlington to Torrens part of the north south corridor. Now, The Advertiser I note picked one additional project. There's a range of other new projects that are reflected in the budget papers, but 11 per cent of everything we're spending on, infrastructure over the next four years is being spent in South Australia, which has only 7 per cent of the population. This is an absolute rubbish story. South Australia is getting well more than its population share and frankly, I know the complaint from my colleagues has been how much South Australia has been getting from this government on infrastructure.
FELDHOFF: Obviously, we heard a lot of the announcements prior to last night, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who'll be pleased with many of the measures. But people who are not pleased are psychiatrists and psychologists about a lack of focus on mental health spending. As Health Minister, why was that choice made? And have has mental health been forgotten in this?
BUTLER: Let me come to that in a sec Sonya. I will say this is a very good health budget for South Australia. We've increased hospital funding next year by 15 per cent for South Australia. No other state has an increase that big. And frankly, that reflects the fact that South Australia has been underfunded for too many years. But we're the first government to lift South Australia and also the Northern Territory was underfunded, the first to lift that funding. I think that will be a terrific boost for all of the work Chris Picton is doing in South Australia's hospitals. But we are doing work in mental health. We're building a new free digital and phone-based service for people to get support early in their battles with mental health that is being built this year, that rolls out on the 1st of January next year. We're constantly opening Medicare Mental Health Centres that, again, are free of charge for people to be able to walk in, very much reflecting our approach in Medicare Urgent Care Clinics. There's more I want to do in mental health. And if I'm able to be the health minister over the next few years, we are working very hard with states, particularly on people who have complex and severe mental illness, who I know are not getting as much support as they should be getting.
SCHILLER: Mark Butler, you've seemed, you know, obviously passionate about the fact that, you know, South Australia is getting 1 in 9 dollars in federal infrastructure. And, you know, Curtis Road seems to be the only item that is mentioned in the paper. Are you saying that you think the coverage of this budget has been unfair?
BUTLER: I just don't think the journos managed to get through all of the papers and that's no criticism. There's hundreds of pages of budget. But I just think, you find one thing that sticks out in the budget papers as you're sort of furiously trying to get through several hundred pages and, suddenly that becomes a story. This is my opportunity to say, as a member of the government and a member of the Expenditure Review Committee, that we are putting very significant money into infrastructure in South Australia.
SCHILLER: It has been a bit unfair, then. Is that what you're saying?
BUTLER: I just think that story did not reflect the true picture of what this government is investing in infrastructure. I think you'll get that from the South Australian Treasurer, too. I know he appreciates the support that we're putting into infrastructure projects. Of course, also Whyalla, A very significant rescue package for Whyalla, which has been so crucial to the South Australian economy for decades.
FELDHOFF: Now, Andrew's given us a call from Blackwood. You are speaking with the Health Minister, Andrew so what have you taken from the budget?
ANDREW, CALLER: Hi Minister, I see what you guys are trying to do with the tax cut. I probably would have rather you just sort of said, look, we're not going to increase taxes and pooled all that money there for tax cuts and whacked up a big new hospital somewhere to actually really impact ambulance ramping. Or actually, to be honest, I like Linda's idea because I think old age pensioners get a bit of a tough deal.
SCHILLER: Mark Butler, could we have held off on the tax cuts and build more hospitals? I mean, ramping is a problem, I guess, all over the country, as you'd be aware.
BUTLER: Yeah, and as I said, the biggest increase in hospital funding to any state is going to South Australia. Others get big increases too. We know how hard this issue is, not just for South Australia, for every government. That big increase in hospital funding will help. We've got three additional Medicare Urgent Care Clinics funded for South Australia in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide, but also in Whyalla and Victor Harbour as well. That is taking pressure off hospital emergency departments. But to Andrew's broader point, these are the choices you make in budget's budget essentially reflects choices that are made. And we took the view that given how hard households have been doing it over this period of global inflation peaks, that a modest, responsible tax cut was in order.
FELDHOFF: Now we've got Mark Butler with us. Doctor Bill Geyer has rung in he's President of the Rural Doctors Association of South Australia. What's your question or focus Bill?
PRESIDENT OF THE RURAL DOCTORS ASSOCIATION, DOCTOR BILL GEYER: Good morning, Minister. My question is about whether or not the government's devoting any resources to a national rural health strategy across the rural areas? All across Australia we're losing obstetric services difficulties providing after hours services. And I'm just wondering whether or not the federal government's devoting any resources to a national plan to address these issues?
SCHILLER: Mark Butler, we've got a minute before the news.
BUTLER: We've got a broader plan, as Bill knows about more doctors and more bulk billing into general practices. General practice has been my major focus as Health Minister for the last three years, and a lot of that benefits rural practise more frankly, than it does in the cities. We've got to get more GPs into the bush, but also, as Bill points out, more specialists. We're making it easier not just to bring in those doctors from overseas, but also to train more Australians to do that work in the bush, but also in our major cities in the future.
FELDHOFF: And just a quick logistics question regarding the energy relief. One texter is asking, “does that go to the energy companies that relief or does it go to individuals?”
BUTLER: It operates in the same way it has over the last couple of years, it comes off your bill.
SCHILLER: Mark Butler thank you for your time.
BUTLER: Thanks very much.
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