Radio interview with Minister Butler, ABC Radio National – 21 August 2026

Media event date: 21 August 2026 Date published: 21 August 2026 Media type: General public SALLY SARA, HOST: Zomi Frankcom’s family says they’re deeply disappointed after the Israeli military cleared its personnel of any criminal wrongdoing in a deadly strike on her humanitarian convoy in Gaza in 2024. They’ve called on the federal government to, quote, “seek full disclosure of the evidence underlying the decision of Israeli Defence Forces”.

Urging the government to pursue all available legal avenues for an independent and credible investigation to be conducted. Mark Butler is the Federal Minister for Health, Ageing, Disability and the NDIS and joins me now. Minister, welcome back to Breakfast.

MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thank you Sally. : Yesterday the Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Israel’s decision fell far short of the accountability that the Australian government expects, and that Australia will continue to press Israel for justice. What action is available to the Australian government to keep pushing for justice? : She said more than that, Sally.

She said how outraged the Australian Government, and I think Australia more broadly, was by the lack of accountability shown by this decision, how outraged we were about the timing of the announcement on World Humanitarian Day of all days, just to rub salt in the wound of the Frankcom family and so many other Australians. And as you know, Sally, she called in the ambassador, the Israeli Ambassador to Australia and made those positions abundantly clear to him.

And we did the same over in Israel as well through our office there. The Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, said also yesterday she'd be engaging again with the Frankcom family, with Zomi's brother in particular, I think, with whom she'd been talking the night before, only a few hours before this announcement was made by the Israeli Government, about what further actions the family wanted or the family was asking the government to take, and obviously she'll be considering that very seriously. : The government has acknowledged that this is a difficult time in the relationship between the federal government and the government of Israel.

What action could the Israeli government take to improve that relationship? : Demonstrate some accountability for what the IDF, the Defence Forces of Israel, admitted were very serious failures. This car that Zomi and her colleagues from the World Central Kitchen were travelling in wasn't just struck once, it was struck three times. Something monumentally bad has happened here and it just appears there's no accountability on that side.

Also there has been toing and froing, very serious discussions between us and the Israelis about some of that evidence that you mentioned in your introduction, and we continue to want to have that released both to Australia but more importantly to the family. : Looking at the role of the Military Advocate General in Israel, the Attorney General of Israel may review decisions of the MAG that the Attorney General considers to be of specific public interest.

Moreover, a complainant or a non-government organisation can challenge the MAG's decision before the Attorney General as to whether to open a criminal investigation. Is the government keeping some of those legal options on the table at the moment? : Penny Wong said yesterday all of the options that we reasonably should have on the table are still there, but she also said she wanted to have a discussion with the family before taking a final decision about our next steps, and I'm sure Penny will be doing that very soon. : To other issues, particularly those in your portfolio, you've said this week that you have a tonne of work to do with states and territories in terms of supports offered to children over the age of nine who are no longer eligible for the NDIS.

What does that work involve? : Essentially it involves a negotiation with them about the sorts of services that we think, not just children over the age of nine, but a number of other adults that will be impacted by the NDIS changes. For example, some adults with psychosocial disability and other groups, what sort of services they should be receiving in the community separate from the NDIS.

Now, for a lot of those groups, those services have existed for a very, very long time. There was a world before the NDIS, so it’s not that we have to pull out a blank sheet of paper and start anew. Many of those services are ready to be scaled back up again or at least reintroduced.

We'll have that discussion with them. There'll obviously be discussion about funding as there always is between the Commonwealth and the states. There are billions of dollars available there.

And part of that discussion will really turn on the degree to which states want to deliver those services or whether the Commonwealth might lean in and deliver services directly as well. : On a separate issue, the federal government wants a limit of $5,000 for veterans spending on allied healthcare, but concerns have been raised that some will be worse off as a result.

As Health Minister, why do you think this cap is the right thing to do? : This is a decision taken in the veterans' portfolios. They've been going through the really challenging work of implementing the Royal Commission into veterans' suicide and that involved frankly quite a root and branch look at the way in which we were delivering the support that our veterans deserve, and in so many cases our veterans need.

This is something that Matt Keogh has been working through very, very carefully. It's not part of the health portfolio. Veterans have always really had their own health programs, and those decisions are taken independently and separately. : What did you make of the address to the Senate by Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie, a veteran herself, about this allied healthcare cap and also her own situation? : I didn't see all of it.

I saw reports of it, and it was very typical of Jacqui. It was raw, it was powerful and it very much brought not just her personal experience, but what you extrapolate from that personal experience to all veterans, and it's why she has been such a powerful political figure for all of these years. It was a very raw appeal not just to the government but to the Prime Minister, and as we always do, we listen to Jacqui very carefully. : On a separate issue, a parliamentary inquiry looking into the 2025 election will today hear from the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church.

The Sydney Morning Herald is today reporting the brethrens enlisted the help of far-right figures to track and heckle members of the Labor and Greens parties. Does the government want these allegations investigated by police? : We certainly want them investigated. And frankly, I think we want some answers from the Liberal Party organisation about their involvement in organising these disruptions.

I was at a number of them, including the press conference that's mentioned in this story where what appeared to be a random agitator just came in and started yelling. Now, at that level, it's disruptive, but I think everyone understands this could get quite dangerous if random people are being paid to go in and create trouble. It doesn't take much imagination to think about this becoming really quite dangerous.

And I think everyone needs to have a good look at themselves, who is involved in the sort of activity we saw at the last election, which I've never seen in my long involvement in politics, whether it was at the polling booths, very significant intimidation of campaign workers on our side of politics, particularly women, there at polling booths handing out to the Labor Party.

But also at these events, people just popping up. what appeared to be randomly, but now we know this was a deliberate, organised attempt to disrupt our side of politics in the election and it could have got quite dangerous and I think there needs to be an explanation about it. : These are allegations at this stage, but more broadly within the senior levels of the government, have there been real concerns about the safety of members of parliament and candidates, including senior members of the government such as the PM? : I think all senior leaders have talked about that.

We see this not just in Australia, we see this across the world, a level of threat to public figures that we've not seen before, certainly not in our lifetimes. The head of ASIO has talked about this, police leaders have talked about it, and I think it's important that all political leaders and leaders of political organisations do nothing to feed what is already a very challenging security environment in public life. : Mark Butler, thank you for joining me this morning. : Thanks Sally.

The Hon Mark Butler MP Disability and carers Allied health 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