TV interview with Minister Butler, Sky News – 3 March 2025

KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Joining us live is the Health Minister, Mark Butler. Mr Dutton today has said that you’re pork barrelling with these initiatives. That of the 90 or thereabouts Urgent Care Clinics to this point, 2 in 3 have been in Labor seats. Is that sort of quite damning, those numbers?
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: It's a beat-up Kieran. Let me step you through it. He ignores the fact that about 15 of these clinics are on a very small basis. That is, small clinics in the Northern Territory and the ACT make up a big part of that. It's a particular approach we've taken in the territories, particularly in the NT. Fifteen of the 87 are in the territories, and no Liberal holds any seat in that in that area of Australia. There are about 14 or 15 clinics from a separate negotiation conducted by National Cabinet, where the New South Wales and Victorian governments transferred their clinics over to us. They were not the subject of the usual site selection that we conduct in our program. If you strip aside those anomalies, about half of the clinics that have been selected by us, through our program outside the territories are Labor-held seats, and half are non-Labor-held seats. I'm up in Queensland if our promise that we made yesterday is able to be delivered if we win the election. Of the 26 clinics in Queensland, 21 of them are held by non-Labor members of the Parliament. These have been selected according to health impact. We've looked at the hospital data in the area, and we've looked at bulk billing data, and what I've also tried to do is ensure that as many people as possible live within driving distance of these clinics. Our promise yesterday is for 4 out of 5 Australians will live within 20 minutes driving distance.

Mr Dutton, again today, criticises the program. When we launched it, they said it was a disaster and it was the wrong fit for Australia. I just disagree with him. His approach is an American-style user-pays approach to health care, and that's what he did when he was health minister. We're focused on bulk billed care, free care, to ensure you don’t have to go to the hospital.
 
GILBERT: Now you've said this point about Peter Dutton and the $7 co-payment, which was scrapped back in 2015. Isn't the reality if viewers watching, and I know from my experience taking the kids to a GP, you're paying much more than $7. Multiples of that, $30 to $100 in terms of that gap payment. I know you have a dig it in for that co‑payment idea, but what we're paying, and the reality of the last couple of years under your government, is a co-payment of much, much more than that.
 
BUTLER: Don't forget, it wasn't just a compulsory fee to go to the GP that Peter Dutton proposed, it was also a fee to go to the hospital emergency department. He just thinks this should be user-pays. But you're right to say bulk billing was in freefall when we came to government. Kieran, I know you live in Canberra, it's particularly low in Canberra, and that was clearly the product of a decision Peter Dutton took to freeze Medicare funding for 6 years. He couldn't get his GP tax through, so instead he froze Medicare income to GPs. Unsurprisingly, if your income is frozen while your costs are still going up, there was pressure on bulk billing. That's why last weekend, the Prime Minister and I announced the biggest investment in Medicare in its history to turn bulk billing around. We've already made some inroads for pensioners, kids and concession cardholders. Their bulk billing rate, is up comfortably above 90 per cent. But for people who don't have a concession card, it is continuing to slide, and we're not we're not going to stand back and let that happen. For Labor, bulk billing is the beating heart of Medicare.
 
GILBERT: And you would live this yourself. You mentioned Canberra, but what's the situation in Adelaide like, and when you've been to the GP previously, even as Minister, what do you pay as the gap payment? Because this is the reality that most of us experience. Is it the same there?
 
BUTLER: I pay a gap and I imagine even with the bulk billing investments we announced the weekend before last, we still expect one in 10 GP visits will attract a gap for people on relatively higher incomes. But what I have seen in Adelaide is a big increase in bulk billing since our 2023 investments, when we tripled the bulk billing incentive for pensioners and concession cardholders. There has been about a 4 per cent increase in bulk billing in South Australia, one of the highest. Last year across the country, 6 million additional free visits to the doctor. What we have done is making a difference, but I completely agree with you, Kieran, there's much more for us to do, which is why we made that announcement we did the weekend before last.
 
GILBERT: When we take the kids, it's sometimes $70 to $80 gap payment. What is it when you go in Adelaide? I'm just trying to get a sense of what the reality is.
 
BUTLER: The average gap across the country is about $42 for a level B standard consult, but that does vary across the country. In Western and South-Western Sydney, which is a big part of the country where it's not particularly cheap to run a business, bulk billing rates are still up well above 95 per cent. Canberra, where you live, have the lowest bulk billing rates in the country. There are some other parts of the country that have relatively low bulk billing rates as well. It's a pretty variable picture across the country, and that's why we've tried to make sure every Australian will now get the support for their doctor to be able to bulk bill and be better off financially to do that. Now, that doesn't mean every single doctor will bulk bill every single visit, but we're confident this very significant injection of funds will get bulk billing back up to about 9 in 10 visits over the next few years.
 
GILBERT: Just before you go, that tightening in the track poll, I don't know if you saw it, I'm sure your advisers would have given you a heads up on it. But the Redbridge polling, they're doing a track similar to the major polls in major parties. Are you encouraged by that? Do you think the Medicare message is resonating?
 
BUTLER: I am very confident that our message on Medicare will resonate. We've fought hard for this program over 40 years and consistently poll after poll, Australians have shown they cherish what I think is Australia's most important social program. They want to see a government strengthening it. They want more free access to GP visits. They want new models of care like Urgent Care Clinics. I'm confident it's a message that resonates.
 
As for polls, Kieran, like I could spend 8 or 10 hours every day poring over all of the different polls that are floating around. And frankly, it's probably going to get worse as we get closer to the election. That's not my job, that's your job. Kieran, with the greatest of respect, you're the commentator and you're terrific at it. I just try to be a modest, humble Health Minister.
 
GILBERT: Well, we'll leave you to do that job. Thanks for taking the time. Appreciate it.
 
BUTLER: Thanks, Kieran.