Radio interview with Minister Butler, ABC Northern Tasmania Breakfast – 8 July 2026

Media event date: 8 July 2026 Date published: 8 July 2026 Media type: General public KIM NAPIER, HOST: Well, this is a conversation that’s been building for a while on Breakfast. You’ve been telling us about long waits for diagnostic scans, people travelling interstate just to get answers and unexpected bills for pathology tests that used to be bulk billed. They’re issues we’ve heard time and time again from listeners right across Northern Tasmania, so this morning we’re putting those concerns directly to the Federal Health Minister Mark Butler, who speaking with Leon Compton yesterday said he’d been hearing about issues at the LGH for many years, adding the Commonwealth had given the state more money than it had ever received from the Commonwealth.

And we welcome him to the program this morning. Good morning to you, Minister. MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Morning Kim, how are you?

Yeah, I’m well. Just to Leon’s conversation yesterday and what came of that, and you talking about the flow systems at the LGH that needed to be looked at, can we ask a more broad question about if we had more aged care places, would that free up bed block? I’ve been pretty frank and honest about the fact that we need more aged care supply.

The demand for aged care literally right now, as some of those early baby boomers born in the 1940s hit the peak aged care age of 80, is climbing in ways we've never seen before in the country. We need to expand aged care supply. There's no question about that.

Now, that’s putting pressure on hospital systems, it’s putting pressure on health systems and obviously the aged care system, which we're trying to grow at a real pace. But the point I was making about the LGH yesterday, which was really echoing concerns people much closer to the coalface, than me were making, is really what was happening at the emergency department.

We're doing a whole bunch of things to relieve pressure at EDs. I'm going to another Medicare Urgent Care Clinic this morning, this one in Burnie. But I visited the Launceston Urgent Care Clinic yesterday which is the busiest in the country, in the whole country, of the 137 that we’ve opened across Australia.

It's relieving pressure on EDs, but the point I was making is that I just keep hearing these reports about the LGH and have for a number of years now. Emily Shepherd, the head of the Nurses Union, was making this point. There's something at the LGH that needs real attention from the state government.

Well, let's give you a broader view. We're repeatedly told on Breakfast that people are waiting months, even years, sometimes travelling interstate just to get diagnostic scans. As an example, at the LGH, there’s only one 3D endoanal ultrasound machine in Tasmania, which is used by colorectal surgeons, that's causing long waits.

This is what our Health Minister, Bridget Archer, had to say about that. BRIDGET ARCHER, TASMANIAN HEALTH MINISTER: I have asked the department to provide some more information in relation to this machine and to the procurement of a new machine, if required. What I would say, I guess I would reiterate and reassure people that there is alternative tools available in terms of diagnostic if it is required.

But I have asked the department to look into this issue. [End of excerpt] Minister Mark Butler, when listeners hear alternative diagnostic tools are available, but they're still waiting, they're still travelling or they're paying, what assurance can you give them that governments are actually measuring the real patient experience? The operations of these hospitals are not something we're directly involved in.

We provide funding and we leave state governments who are the operators to decide what equipment they purchase. From time to time, we have programs in place to help state governments update their equipment. Usually that is in the area of cancer treatment.

Cutting edge screening and testing and imaging facilities. But by and large, we provide a big sum of money every year to a state government like Tasmania. We're increasing that by 20 per cent this year.

And really, the operators of the hospitals are best placed to decide what diagnostic equipment they use. It is right, of course, that there are a range of different procedures that can take place for suspected cancer, endoscopies and things like that, but I'm not a doctor. I'm not best placed to provide that advice.

But you are a federal health minister, and you have said that the Commonwealth had given the state more money than it's received- ever received before. So providing that funding, isn't the Commonwealth responsible to check in on the return on their investment? We've always had a situation since these funding agreements were first put in place many years ago, where we basically pay the states for their activity.

And this year we're paying all states a big increase, because we recognise there's a lot more demand in the hospital system now than maybe there was several years ago. And for the first time, we're also paying the small jurisdictions, so Tasmania and the two territories, an additional loading to recognise the fact that they do find it a little bit more difficult to find the money to do things like buy that equipment.

So that's why Tasmania is getting such a big increase in their funding this year compared to what they would have received under the old agreement. And they then have to make the decision about what they do with that money. All of the states consistently resist any sense that they have to measure up to some performance indicators that Canberra would set, and that's just life.

That's how they approach these negotiations. Ultimately the Tasmanian Government is accountable for the way in which they operate that hospital. We provide the money, they make the decisions.

But there is a disconnect there, and listeners would be thinking how could you be hearing about the issues at the Launceston General Hospital for years, throwing money hand over fist, and it's still a balls up? I don't think any of your listeners want a hospital system run from Canberra. At the end of the day, state governments are best placed to run the 750 public hospitals we have across this country, with maybe the exception of the Mersey, as your listeners would remember.

But really, they’re best placed to make these decisions about how to spend taxpayers’ money wisely to get the best health outcomes for their patients and their citizens. I don’t think anyone's ever really made the case that those decisions should be made way off in Canberra. All right, let's give you another example.

We spoke to Launceston's Felicity Richards, whose mother found a breast lump, and when she was told there'd be a seven-week wait over Christmas for a scan, but got it within a week in Queensland. FELICITY RICHARDS: The scan date was scheduled for 22 December, and I just felt that was so ominous, thinking you're going into a notoriously tight time of year. Even if you get the scan then, what are our odds of actually getting answers and commencing treatment if necessary before we're well into the new year? [End of excerpt] How do we stop regional Tasmanians needing family interstate to access timely care?

Do you accept that regional patients are increasingly facing a two-tier system here? Those that can afford to travel or pay privately get faster care, and those who can't simply wait. Some of this specialist equipment is difficult to have in absolutely every region.

I'm not really sure what test or screen your listener was talking about. But if it was a diagnostic mammography screen, then there was one funded to go in Hobart, which would provide the first in Tasmania as I recall it. But there are waits.

We've got a text here saying that this lady has a six-month wait for a breast ultrasound. That's unacceptable if you have been diagnosed in a mammogram with having a lump. Can you imagine how you would feel having to wait to find out whether you've essentially been given a death sentence or not?

Of course, that's too long and that's way beyond the clinical time recommended to have that follow-up scan. Obviously we do need to look at whether that equipment is located across Northern Tasmania, whether the best place to do it is in Hobart, so people have to travel there. Again, that is something that Tasmania is best placed to decide.

But I'm hearing these stories across Australia, not just about breasts, but also about people having follow-up tests if they have a suspected bowel cancer after the bowel cancer screening program. Some of the waits that I'm hearing about here in Tasmania, but also I hear them in the mainland, are way too long. And that's not about particularly expensive equipment.

It's about procedures. It's about someone having that colonoscopy if they've had a suspected positive sample return as the bowel cancer screening program. So across Australia, governments do have to make sure that there is enough capacity in the system where there is a suspected cancer in particular for people to get that follow-up confirmation test, and if it is there, to get onto treatment as quickly as possible.

Okay, to another issue amid a cost of living crisis, and you say that Tasmanians don’t want hospitals run from Canberra. Many listeners, though, say pathology tests that they used to have bulk billed are now attracting out-of-pocket fees. This is what former AMA State President Michael Lumsden-Steel had to say.

MICHAEL LUMSDEN-STEEL: When you get a pathology test requested by your general practitioner or the specialist, there's a whole sequence of things that happen to get that result back to the patients. Now, the cost of providing that services have been going up by 5 per cent to 7 per cent per year, but there's been no indexation to the numbers, and that's why pathology providers are now having to index the fee.

What patients get is rebate back from the government. That's your Medicare rebate. And that's simply not being indexed to meet the costs. [End of excerpt] So is that an intended consequence of Medicare changes or has something gone wrong?

Yes something's gone wrong. I think first of all that doctor hasn't kept up with what we've done. We indexed pathology rebates last year in last year's budget for the first time in 25 years, and that was welcomed by the industry.

They've been calling for indexation. I mean, some of their technology means that the testing is becoming cheaper but other parts of their technology require laboratory workforce, so obviously those costs are rising, which is why we indexed them for the first time in quarter of a century. Bulk billing for pathology is still running at about 99.5 per cent.

Anne Urquhart has told me about some stories in the northwest where it appears now after investigation that the doctors referring patients for a test had been including the wrong information or not enough information on the referral form for the pathology company to effectively apply the right rebate and bulk bill the person. I think that's been corrected. But by and large out there, the bulk billing rates for pathology are still running at really at the highest rate of anything in Medicare, well over 99 per cent.

We're watching it very closely. I've made that clear to the three very big companies that control the entire pathology market in this country that I'm watching their bulk billing rates very, very closely. But I think what you've got is essentially a wrong referral system from some doctors, which has now been corrected because of the intervention of Anne Urquhart.

You've been on the ground for 24 hours. You've been smashed with concerns from people living in Tasmania or in the north of the state about the LGH in particular. What do you say to listeners as you prepare to head back to Canberra, with our system seemingly, as I mentioned, balls-up?

I wouldn't describe my time here, Kim, as having been smashed. I'm about to visit the third Medicare Urgent Care Clinic across the north. One at Launceston, I visited Devonport yesterday and I'm seeing Burnie this morning.

They are seeing many, many thousands of people in the north and the northwest who need urgent care, who otherwise would go to the local hospital emergency department and crowd that up even further. So why is the ED department crowded then? And I was there yesterday with my mother and I was watching elderly people being treated in the actual waiting area, which is quite belittling for them to have their treatment done in front of other people and also for those that don't like to see people having IV drips put in or being given pain relief.

It is really confronting. And then one doctor telling my mother that she can't have water or food in case she needs an operation, then being given morphine in front of the other patients that are waiting and then asked if she wanted water. It's like, is the left hand talking to the right hand here?

And then five different doctors came out of three different doors over a 15 minute period asking where she was. I said, she's gone for an MRI. They asked me why she'd been taken for an MRI.

Can you see how every day Tasmanians walk out of that place going, what the hell? Yeah, I do. And I hear confronting stories all the time about our emergency departments.

And as I said, I've heard them a lot over the years about the LGH. But I hear them about other hospitals as well. Yeah, but you’re in Tassie.

Which is why we are trying to work cooperatively with state governments. I’m just making the point, this is not particularly a Tasmanian issue. This is an issue that state governments are grappling with across the country, which is why we’ve sat down with them sensibly to give them more money, but also to do what we can to relieve pressure.

I've never pretended that urgent care clinics are going to make emergency departments suddenly sort of empty of people waiting in chairs. Of course they're not, but they are relieving pressure. They are providing patients with high quality urgent care in their community, fully bulk billed, so they don't have to go to hospital.

And sometimes with their kids, for example, they might have broken an arm playing sport, wait hours and hours at a busy emergency department. So I've heard positive stories about that. I've heard positive stories about the number of doctors who are now here.

Three or four years ago, most of the stories in this part of Tasmania were about practices shutting down and there not being enough doctors. Now I'm hearing about practices opening up. I'm hearing that they are bulk billing at rates that they haven't for many years.

So I don't feel that I've been smashed. Obviously, there are real pressures in the hospital system. There are pressures in other parts of the healthcare system, but our investments to make Medicare stronger, to increase bulk billing, to make medicines cheaper are making a difference in this part of Tasmania.

Could it be, as I say, thank you for your time this morning and you talk about Launceston and you talk about other places, is it time for Canberra to start sticking their finger in a bit more or their nose in a bit more and running these hospitals and checking on their return on investment? We're not going to be running the hospitals. Even though I'm a federal minister, I know what Canberra does well and I know what state governments are better placed to do and running hospitals is something I firmly believe should continue to be a state and territory government role.

They're closer to the ground. They've got the experience in doing it. We've just really kicked into a new five-year funding agreement.

It started last week, which is how Tasmania is going to get that extra money from the Commonwealth. So it's a while before we sit down and negotiate another agreement. Things are probably going to continue to operate in terms of Canberra's role in the hospital system as they have for decades now.

And Steve just says, please remind Mr Butler before he leaves, they're not giving us anything. It's taxpayers' money and they've run us into massive debt. So lots of frustrated Northern Tasmanians, but Health Minister Mark Butler, I appreciate the time you've given us this morning.

Pleasure, Kim. The Hon Mark Butler MP Hospital care Accessibility We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country throughout Australia, and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to Elders both past and present. © Commonwealth of Australia