TV interview with Minister Butler, ABC News Breakfast - 15 May 2026

JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: Now, let’s get you some more on those six cruise passengers who are going to touch down in Western Australia later today. And we are joined by the Federal Health Minister, Mark Butler. Mark, welcome back to the program.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Morning, James.
 
GLENDAY: Can we just start off, I mean, this group’s on its way back. Did they have to stop on the way back? We know there were some concerns around refuelling. And more importantly, are they all still healthy?
 
BUTLER: There weren’t concerns around refuelling, it’s just a long way from the Netherlands. So yes, they’ve had to stop to refuel, but they’re on their way. They’re due to land about lunchtime, early lunchtime eastern standard time, or sometime late morning in Perth. They were wheels up about 7pm last night, so they’re on their way.
 
As I said yesterday in the Parliament, they were all tested just before going onto the plane, and they all tested negative to the hantavirus and are in good shape, not showing any symptoms. They’ll be tested immediately they land in Perth and have been transported to the quarantine facility there. There are expert staff that we’ve deployed from Darwin’s Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre who are there ready to take them, and they’ll be there for at least three weeks.
 
GLENDAY: Was it hard to find a crew who wanted to get involved in this mission? Because obviously the risk is low, but there’s still a risk.
 
BUTLER: Yeah, and there’ll be arrangements for those crew as well, so it did take the Department of Foreign Affairs a little while to find a plane and a crew, but they worked in their usual professional way and they achieved that. We thank the Netherlands for housing those Australians; four Australian citizens, one permanent Australian resident, and a New Zealander who is being covered by our repatriation and our quarantine arrangements as well. But they’re on their way back. They’ll be landing sometime later today, and they’ll be subject to one of the strongest quarantine arrangements you’ll see anywhere in the world.
 
GLENDAY: One of the huge stories out of the Federal Budget is obviously in your portfolio, and that involves the NDIS. You're going to have some pretty sweeping powers to make cuts to therapies, to budgets. How are you expecting to use them? Because there's been a lot of speculation about this, I think it's fair to say.
 
BUTLER: Those powers will be used on the very clear advice of the National Disability Insurance Agency. Take pricing, for example, this has been a challenge for many years in the NDIS. In programs like aged care or in health, the prices are set usually based on independent advice. That's not traditionally been the case with the NDIS. There will be a pricing review every year that will be presented to the National Disability Insurance Board, and that board will provide the Minister, at the moment that's me, with advice about what price caps should be in place for different services and different providers. And I think that will provide much more certainty, not just to taxpayers but also to participants about the prices they're being charged by the many hundreds of thousands of providers in the system.
 
GLENDAY: We had you here in the studio in August last year, and we asked you about negative gearing and capital gains tax. And you sort of defended the measures, saying the government's position was clear. The satirical publication, The Betoota Advocate, then poked a bit of fun at you for defending the status quo. And that's a long-winded way of asking, Minister, was there a point over the past year where you thought the risks of not acting on property tax breaks were starting to outweigh the risks of taking the decision that the government has made now?
 
BUTLER: There wasn't a particular day. But as you lean into supply which we've done as a government, trying to build more houses, as you try and make it easier for young people to get into the market in the first place by giving them, frankly, options for a 5 per cent deposit, cutting years off the time it takes them to save for a deposit with the elevated prices they now confront, we just weren't shifting the dial enough still. Not just young people were stopping me, but parents and grandparents so worried about the fact that their kids or grandkids were not able to break into the market, were ending up at auctions, bidding against investors that had the advantage of these tax breaks. At some point, I think, with all of the things we did in our first term, it became clear to us that if we didn't act, we were going to see this Australian dream of home ownership slip further and further away from young Australians.
 
GLENDAY: Just before I let you go, obviously, it was the Budget reply last night. There's been a huge reaction in Parliament and outside Parliament to these changes, which is not entirely unexpected. Do you think that the Australian people are ultimately going to support you on this?
 
BUTLER: I think they will. This is tough change, this is big change. And whether it's the NDIS or the changes we're making to housing investment, we're going to go out and make the case. I think the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have been clear about this, but we're confident that Australians are seeing that there's something wrong in the housing system, particularly for young Australians. People aren't coming up to me and saying they're worried about their kids or grandkids getting their second, third or fourth house. They're worried about them getting their first house, breaking into that great Australian dream of home ownership. We're going to get out there and make the case for these changes because they are big changes. They're changes that protect existing investments. If you're currently negative gearing, you can continue to do so. Gains you’ve made on assets will continue to be treated under the old rules up until 1 July next year. But going forward, we’ve got to give our kids an even break here.
 
GLENDAY: Mark Butler, we always appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us this morning.
 
BUTLER: Thanks, James.