Butler's priorities: Medicare, PBS, aged care reform, NDIS's future

In a statement following his cabinet ministry appointment as Australia’s Minister for Health and Ageing and Minister for Disability and the NDIS, Mark Butler has set out his priorities. “From Medicare to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), aged care to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), Australia’s systems of care and support are world leading and trail blazing,” Butler said.

“Australians are rightly proud and protective of these important social institutions,” Butler said, adding that Labor’s federal election win had given the government “a strong mandate to continue to build on and strengthen these institutions for the decades to come”. Butler said: “Our task is crystal clear: to strengthen Medicare, protect the PBS, deliver generational reform to aged care, and secure the future of the NDIS.”

Speaking about his ministerial arrangements in a press conference in Canberra on 12 May, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “We’re trying to get everything in the right spot with the experience that we’ve had during our first term of government. And Mark Butler”, regarding the NDIS responsibility in particular, “of course, has a great interest in this area, has had an interest for a long period of time.”

One of the changes Albanese has made in his ministerial arrangements is for ageing to be part of the cabinet health portfolio. Regarding this, cabinet portfolios, and the former Minister for Aged Care, Anika Wells, Albanese said: “there’s been multiple changes made. That’s what happens. And just as there are new members entering the Cabinet, there were new members last year as well.

“You know, Anika Wells, for example, came in but kept the same portfolios. Ageing and Aged Care is really part of Health. And as you know, the structure would normally be a Cabinet Minister and then a Minister. We’ve put that in place and I think we’ve got the right people in the right places.” In addition to being Minister for Health in the Albanese government’s first term, Butler served as Minister for Ageing and Australia’s first Minister for Mental Health in the Gillard government.

Butler said he looked forward to delivering on the government’s commitment to Medicare, PBS, aged care and NDIS “alongside an exceptional team of ministers and assistant ministers, and working closely with stakeholders in the sector”. Also announced by Albanese on 12 May was that Sam Rae is Minister for Aged Care and Seniors in the outer ministry.

Assistant ministers include Rebecca White for Health and Aged Care, and Indigenous Health; Emma McBride for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, Rural and Regional Health; and Dan Repacholi as Special Envoy for Men’s Health.

Image credit: iStock.com/Mihajlo Maricic