Television interview with Minister Butler, Today Show – 16 July 2025

SARAH ABO, HOST: So let's unpack some of that that now with the Health Minister, Mark Butler, who joins us from Adelaide. Minister, thanks for your time this morning. Eight hundred more kids will now be tested for STIs. It is just disgusting. What is the Government doing to assist these families and to ensure that Australian children are never, ever put in this position again?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: The Minister, Jason Clare, as you know, has said that when Parliament resumes next week for this fortnight, we'll be introducing urgent legislation to make sure that childcare centres do have those obligations that Karl was just talking about. Frankly, it should have happened sooner. I think Minister Clare has been honest about that. But pretty basic obligations around safety of children, around regulation of workers, those sorts of things that Karl was talking about over the last five minutes will be things that the Parliament will be looking at over the next two weeks.
 
ABO: But it's as you say, Minister, it's basic. I mean, the issue, this lack of communication between various childcare centres, right? The fact that investigators are still only now discovering this man's work history because there isn't a centralised system – I mean, how can we have any faith in the system right now? If 800 more kids are being tested today, how many more might need to be tested tomorrow?
 
BUTLER: It's just not good enough, and the parents involved here just must be feeling absolutely gutted by these sorts of communications. And so many other parents in Victoria in particular will be wondering whether they're going to get a call. We have to fix this and we have to fix it urgently, and the Government's committed to doing that. We've been talking to the Opposition to make sure that it's something that has a broad base of support and can happen as quickly as possible.
 
ABO: Do you think police powers need to be increased as well to help facilitate investigations like this?
 
BUTLER: That's a matter I'm sure that Jason Clare is talking to state governments about. State ministers have been talking to us over recent weeks about how we can bolster powers and give parents more confidence in what is otherwise a very, very good and important system for young Australians.
 
ABO: Yeah, there's a lot of support for speeding up this process. Let's hope it does happen swiftly.
 
Alright, Minister, I want to get you on a couple of other things this morning as well. Indonesia has just inked a deal with Donald Trump, the US President announcing he'll impose a 19 per cent tariff on goods from Indonesia. It seems a bit odd that one of our closest neighbours has beaten us to Trump's negotiating table, doesn't it?
 
BUTLER: It's important to remember that as recently as last week, Indonesia was facing blanket tariffs of 32 per cent from the US. Australia is still covered by the lowest possible tariff regime that the US has proposed at 10 per cent. We obviously think that's 10 per cent too high. We're also concerned, as I think we've said over the last couple of weeks, about emerging reports about additional tariffs on copper and particularly pharmaceutical exports, so we're working on that. But I do make the point that Australia still is facing the lowest possible tariffs of any country. I'm glad for Indonesia to settle a deal. If they have, they’ve brought that down to 19 per cent, which is still significantly higher than what Australia is facing. But we're continuing to work very hard through officials, through trade ministers, through the ambassador, to get the best possible deal for Australia.
 
ABO: Just on the PM's visit to China, I mean, I get that it's important to obviously foster these relationships, and those relationships have thawed since your government came into power. But the question has to be asked, how much can we actually trust the Chinese? I mean, President Xi basically fobbed off the PM, shutting down his attempts for greater transparency when it comes to future live fire drills off our very own coast.
 
BUTLER: Let's see what happens in the future. This is a complex relationship, Sarah -
 
ABO: Well, he said that he won’t tell us.
 
BUTLER: - as your viewers know. But it's incredibly important.- What he said is that China will continue to undertake exercises in waters such as the Tasman Sea, as Australia and pretty much every other navy in the world does. We've made our position very clear. We did at the time, and now at the highest level, the Prime Minister has made that position clear to the President of China that we think the notice given of the live firing exercises was inadequate, doesn't align with the sort of notice that other navies, including the Australian Navy, gives of those sorts of exercises. But this is also, as well as being complex, incredibly important. Of every $20 we earn from exports, five of them come from China. One comes from the US, that's very important, but $5 comes from China. We have to secure those export arrangements and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are underpinned by them, but also expand them. And that's what the PM has been doing over the last few days, expansion of opportunity in tourism, in steel and overnight, as well, in apple exports.
 
ABO: Alright, it just seems as though the President has shrugged his shoulders a little bit on that.
 
But look, just finally, on your portfolio, I know you've been very busy, Mark. You've just seized over 10 million illicit vapes, valued at nearly half a billion dollars – I mean, that's some pretty impressive work.
 
BUTLER: This fight is not over. And you know we've talked about this, Sarah, the fight against Big Tobacco, against organised crime that are still selling these things through retail stores is a really tough fight. But I'm really pleased we've done our bit at the border, seizing 10 million of them after we finally made it illegal to import these bubblegum-flavoured vapes into Australia that were being sold through our schools. But also, finally we see research today that shows that fewer young people, particularly teenagers, fewer are vaping, fewer are smoking, and the exposure they get through social media to pro-vaping ads has more than halved. The fight's not over, but we have turned the corner on what was really one of the greatest public health threats that we were facing for young people.
 
ABO: Alright, Health Minister Mark Butler, thank you for your time there on several topics this morning.