TV interview with Minister Butler, Today Show - 23 February 2026

KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: There's a fresh push this morning to block ISIS brides from coming back to Australia.

SARAH ABO, HOST: The opposition is proposing legislation that would make it a criminal offence to assist the return of terrorist sympathisers. Health Minister Mark Butler joins us live now from Canberra. Good morning to you, Minister. So, given the PM has, quote, nothing but contempt for these so-called ISIS brides, Labor must be on side here?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: We're managing this situation in very strict accordance with the passport laws that the former government put in place when they were in office. That governed the return under their office of 40 people, not just women and children but also fighters, and we've also made clear from the Prime Minister down that we're not providing any assistance or any support to these people and that's the approach we'll continue to take.
 
STEFANOVIC: So just further to that if state agencies reportedly have been prepared to relocate the brides through federal agencies, how is that not assisting them?
 
BUTLER:  I think the Minister for Home Affairs addressed that yesterday. We've been very clear we've not been providing any assistance or any support for these people to move from where they are back to Australia, and that's going to continue to be our very clear approach.
 
ABO: So whose role is it then to find a home for them or to relocate them, and where do they go?
 
BUTLER: At the end of the day, these people took the decision, a very bad decision, to go and assist one of the most horrific death cults we've seen in our generation. And as the Prime Minister said, they've made that bed and they have to lie in it. As far as we're concerned, we're not going to provide any assistance for them to come back.
 
ABO: But that's not the question I asked. Who is? If they're coming back, they need to be put somewhere.
 
BUTLER: We're not.
 
ABO: Well, who is? You must have some kind of oversight. You'll need to monitor them, them, won't you, when they get here?
 
BUTLER:  If they make their own way back, they'll be met with the full force of the law from the time they reach the airport. And, of course, our security agencies are monitoring their movements very closely. And if they do manage to get back to Australian borders under their own steam, the Prime Minister's made it very clear they will be met with the full force of the law, probably at the airport gates.  We're monitoring this very, very closely. But quite what they do, whether they stay in northern Syria or they move to another country, is a matter for them. They made the appalling decision to move themselves and in some cases their children to assist this appalling death cult. We're not going to provide any assistance or support to them to move back to Australia.
 
STEFANOVIC: But the moment they land here you don't know where they're going to go?
 
BUTLER:  That will be a matter for  the security agencies to consider, particularly whether they've committed any offences by moving overseas to support a death cult. And obviously, we've got our security agencies working very closely on this case, monitoring on a daily basis.
 
STEFANOVIC: So no government agencies involved whatsoever?
 
BUTLER: I've just made clear our security agencies are monitoring this very closely and preparing for any possibility that people like them would come back to Australia. They would be met at the border with the full force of the law.
 
STEFANOVIC: So, just to clarify, a security agency is a government agency, isn't it?
 
BUTLER:  Of course it is. I don't understand there are any private intelligence agencies.  Our intelligence agencies- we've made this very clear, our intelligence agencies are monitoring these people very closely. They provided the Minister for Home Affairs with advice, for example, just last week to issue a temporary exclusion order about one of those people because on the basis of intelligence they'd gathered, they viewed this person as a security threat.  Our intelligence agencies are working hard on this every single day. And if they reach the Australian borders under their own steam, with no assistance from the government, they would be met at the border by other security agencies.
 
STEFANOVIC: Is the US transporting them?
 
BUTLER: Not that I'm aware of, I've not heard that story.
 
STEFANOVIC: Okay. Not assisting them in any way, shape or form?
 
BUTLER: Not that I've heard, Karl. Not that I've heard.
 
STEFANOVIC: And it's not your department. Let's move on to your portfolio. GPs say they want the federal government to butt out of Medicare funding and replace with an independent body. What's your response to that?
 
BUTLER: There's no more important social programme for Australia and certainly not for the Labor Party than Medicare.  I can't see a situation in the foreseeable future where a Labor government would butt out of health policy because it's one of the most important things for our population.  We have been working so hard over the last four years to strengthen Medicare, to turn around bulk billing, to make medicines cheaper, to get more doctors into the system. And just today, we'll be opening another four urgent care clinics, bringing that number up to 130, not just providing terrific urgent care to people in their own community, but taking pressure off our crowded emergency department.  I sort of get where the doctors are coming from here, but a Labor government sees this as utterly core to our job as a federal government.
 
ABO: Alright, Minister, thanks so much for joining us this morning.