Radio interview with Minister Butler, 2GB Mornings – 11 June 2026

Media event date: 11 June 2026 Date published: 11 June 2026 Media type: General public MARK LEVY, HOST: Let’s bring in the Federal Health Minister, Mark Butler. He’s on the line from Canberra. Minister, good morning to you.

MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Hi, Mark. I’m actually in Sydney. : Oh, in Sydney. Let's talk about what you're announcing today because there's a lot of people out there who battle arthritis and musculoskeletal issues.

I just made mention of the fact that I've been going through a gout battle over the last 24 hours. What are you announcing today, Minister? We're announcing a record investment in medical research in this area.

You’re right to say more Australians deal with arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions than any other chronic condition, with the possible exception of mental health issues. Seven million or more Australians, that's about one in three Australians, are dealing with this really debilitating set of conditions, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis. As you say, gout is a very common condition as well, often not really very well understood because it's often associated in stereotypes with an old man who’s drinking too much brandy.

It's obviously much more complicated than that, largely a genetic condition. There's still so much we don't know about these conditions. First of all, what causes a lot of them, but particularly how to treat them.

We'll be working today with Arthritis Australia out at the RPA. I'll be with the Prime Minister, the hospital in his electorate, announcing this record amount of funding into research, because although it impacts about one in three Australians, historically there hasn't been the same level of money going into research for these conditions that you see in some other common conditions like cardiovascular disease or dementia and things like that.

This is also a bit about balancing the scale. It's welcome news for those who battle arthritis. But just while we're talking about medical research funding, out of interest, how much sort of money goes towards motor neurone disease?

Because obviously there was the Neale Daniher funeral yesterday, Minister. It was just beautiful, the send-off for Neale. We've got Jai Arrow in rugby league who's come out and spoken about his MND diagnosis.

You know, $100 million towards arthritis is fantastic. How much is the Government investing in research into motor neurone disease and hopefully finding a cure for it one day? As your listeners will know, Neale Daniher was the Australian of the Year last year.

I worked with him and his network, the FightMND network, over the course of that year to really find a project that would be a fitting legacy not only to his long work in this area, but also his tenure as Australian of the Year. And in late January, just a couple of days after he finished his time as Australian of the Year, we announced more than $40 million of Commonwealth funding into a clinical trials network that will be overseen by FightMND, which is Neale Daniher's organisation.

It has grown into one of, if not the most significant research body in MND anywhere on the planet. That really is down to the work of Neale and his extraordinary family. We thought it was appropriate, particularly given his time as Australian of the Year, that we make a significant contribution, a very large contribution to that work, which will be attracting clinical trials of new drugs that will start to really make inroads into finding a cure for MND.

That's fantastic, because it's heartbreaking to watch these people go through what they're going through with MND. A dear friend of mine lost her father to MND. It's just heartbreaking, so well done.

On Monday I was at the MCG with the family and with the network. And Jai Arrow was out there, and he tossed the coin. There must have been more than 90,000 people at the MCG on Monday, pretty much every one of whom had one of the blue beanies on.

It was an extraordinary image. There was just so much emotion in the ground in recognition of Neale's extraordinary contribution to the country. Absolutely.

While I've got you, Minister, there are concerns in New South Wales about wait times in our hospitals. The billion-dollar Westmead Hospital in Sydney has recorded the worst wait times and ambulance ramping in the state, with one in 10 patients there spending almost 22 hours in the ED. Ryan Park, the New South Wales Health Minister, is saying part of the reason for that wait time is you, the Federal Government.

What's your response to that, Minister? I hear this a lot from state governments, obviously. A bit of a truism of Australian politics is everything the state government is doing is fantastic and everything the Federal Government is doing is terrible.

The truth sits somewhere in between there. We're all struggling with this huge spike in demand for aged care. The oldest of the baby boomers who were born in the years after the war are just hitting aged care age now, and we need to build huge numbers of new beds, and we're having trouble doing that, frankly.

We're putting a lot more money into the system, but in some parts of the country we're having trouble getting planning approvals quickly made so that we can get those aged care facilities built, those new beds open. The Illawarra has been a particular problem I've talked about publicly. We've granted hundreds of beds into that region but not been able to get planning approval from the Wollongong City Council because they object to the height that we're going to have to build these new facilities at.

There's basically a shared responsibility here for us to do much better in getting these beds built quickly. I've said publicly we need a new aged care facility opened in this country every three days for the next 20 years. That’s the level of demand we have.

And the fact we’re not building them quickly enough is putting pressure on our hospital system. I’ve been honest about that. We’re funding the states to roll out programs to divert older Australians from hospital, particularly if that means they can get the care they need in an aged care facility instead of being put in an ambulance.

We know that almost 1300 people in New South Wales are stuck in hospital beds waiting for a spot in aged care or an NDIS placement. I know that over the next decade you want to reduce NDIS costs by $185 billion over the next decade. Wouldn't that suggest that the Federal Government needs to take some responsibility here and work a lot closer with the states to try and ease the pressure on emergency departments? : I want to be honest.

This is our responsibility in aged care, and we are working with state governments. We funded new programmes in the budget a few weeks ago, particularly to try and move some of the patients with very high-level dementia who are stuck in state hospitals right around the country, who are often difficult to place in standard aged care facilities. We're setting up specialist centres for them.

But I also want to be honest that we can't magic up the number of aged care facilities that we need next week, the week after that, the week after that, without all levels of government, including local government, putting their shoulder to the wheel, recognising we've got a huge job ahead of us to make sure we have the facilities that we need. Particularly to care for the large baby boomer population, which are just now, almost this year and next year, entering that critical age into their 80s that need more aged care services.

We're working closely with state governments, but I don't want to pretend to your listeners that this is an easy challenge for us. All levels of government are going to be dealing with this for many years to come. Well, it really is an important portfolio.

Before you go, we on this radio station have been keeping an eye on these donations that are coming in for One Nation, the fire the liar campaign. One Nation in 24 hours, it's just ticked over $1.7 million dollars – what do you make of that? I'm not keeping an eye on it as much maybe as you are, Mark, I mean, online donations have been a feature of Australian politics since the internet was invented.

But doesn't it show from the electorate though, Minister, that $29 donations, there's not only a groundswell of support for One Nation, but it's people prepared to put their money where their mouth is and say: look, we're frustrated with the major parties, we're frustrated with the Government. The fact that One Nation in 24 hours has raised $1.7 million? : I don't think we needed to look at a particular fundraising campaign by One Nation to know that people are doing it real tough.

There's enormous pressure on households, on businesses. We know that. We knew it before One Nation ran a fundraising campaign about it.

That's why we put together a budget that was designed to do as much as we could, some hard reform, but responsible reform to set the country up for the future. Now, I know there's a lot of debate about that – whether it's about the NDIS changes that I'm seeking to implement or about some of the changes in relation to taxation. But hard reform, responsible reform, always gives rise to that level of debate.

All right. Before you go, one last one. Their quest is to fire the liar – their words, not mine.

Is Anthony Albanese a liar? No, Anthony Albanese is a terrific Prime Minister who works hard for his country. He's made it clear.

You know, it's interesting – we've had so many calls for this hard reform that was contained in the budget. I wonder what would have happened if we did the easy thing and said: look, there's a war on Iran. We'll have to wait for another day to do this sort of reform.

But I think everyone understands it's needed to set the country up for the future. But Mark, you know that when you say to journalists that I'm not going to touch negative gearing, capital gains tax, and I say that 50 times, that's a lie, surely? : I think all of your listeners, whether they're parents or grandparents or young people seeking to break into the housing market, recognise that something's fundamentally broken with our housing system.

People recognise something's seriously wrong with the NDIS, a scheme about which people are generally very proud, but people think has gone off the rails. When you're a government in the middle of a term and you recognise that things you've been trying to do, whether it's to fix the NDIS or make it easier for young people to get into housing, just isn't shifting the dial enough, we could sit back and say: well, we're not going to do anything for two years, or we could grasp the nettle and make the hard, responsible decisions, and that's what we decided to do.

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