Transcript: Interview with Sally Sara, ABC RN Breakfast - 23 April 2026

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH SALLY SARA, ABC RN BREAKFAST

23 April 2026

Topics: NDIS reforms, private health insurance rebate cut for over 65s, Labor’s aged care costs backflip

E&OE…………………………………

SALLY SARA: Anne Ruston is the Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care and joins me now. Anne Ruston, welcome back to Radio National Breakfast. 

ANNE RUSTON: Thanks, Sally. 

SALLY SARA: Yesterday, the Health Minister said if the Government waits for easier times to make hard choices, then the social licence of the NDIS will be lost. Let's have a quick listen to the Minister's comments from yesterday. 

[Recording plays]

MARK BUTLER: Every example of taxpayer money wasted on fraud erodes that trust. It's why these reforms are about much more than budget savings, this is about saving the NDIS itself. Because if we act now, we can safeguard and strengthen it so that it serves Australians it was created for. 

[Recording ends]

SALLY SARA: That's the Minister speaking yesterday. Anne Ruston, broadly, does the Opposition support the Government's goal of reining in spending growth from about 10 per cent currently to about 2 per cent a year for the next four years? 

ANNE RUSTON: Well, we've been very clear all along with our position that we will support any sensible reforms, practical, sensible reforms that restore the integrity and the sustainability of the NDIS and make sure that it is here for future generations of the people it was originally designed for. So, we very much support and are happy to work with the Government but we need more details about what the changes the Minister is actually proposing mean on the ground, because we need to make sure that there's proper planning that sits behind what they're doing. But the principle of making sure we've got a sustainable NDIS into the future for the people it was designed to support is something the Coalition has always supported. 

SALLY SARA: Is it necessary in the Opposition's view to remove some participants from the NDIS? 

ANNE RUSTON: Well, obviously, this is the big question that I think is on the minds of all Australians today is that the Government, for the first time yesterday, made the announcement that it was going to potentially cut and make changes to eligibility criteria - we need to know what the details of that is. And I think the distress and uncertainty that this is causing those people that are on the NDIS and their families today is something that the Minister needs to clear up very, very quickly, because that is probably the most important decision that the Government will make now. 

SALLY SARA: One of the key questions for this reform is whether the states and territories will come on board and play their role. You've been in the health portfolio for a long time. You know how some of this can go. Do you have some sympathy for Mark Butler when he's asking the states to step up? 

ANNE RUSTON: Well, I think Mark Butler would do well to speak to the states and territories before he makes announcements and not afterwards. We saw this with his announcement last year at the Press Club when he announced the foundational support program of Thriving Kids, only to find out that the states and territories who he was expecting to pay for half of it hadn't even been spoken to about it. So, I think he needs to speak and to be more consultative with the states and territories. You know, consultation is something you do before you make an announcement, not after. 

SALLY SARA: Turning to a separate issue, Australians aged over 65 will soon have to pay hundreds of dollars more for private health insurance each year, after the Government announced that it would bring the private healthcare rebate for older Australians in line with that paid by younger Australians. Do you support that move? 

ANNE RUSTON: Well, I think it's a complete false economy. And it's really quite interesting that Mark Butler basically lied to the Press Club yesterday when he said that private health rebates for older Australians, and I quote, "had no policy merit." In [2023], Mark Butler was handed a report that was commissioned by the Government into private health insurance, which basically said that when we're talking about private health rebates for older Australians, and I quote from this report, "this is the segment where the PHI rebate provides the greatest value for money for the community." So if you put that simply, taxpayers are better off funding higher rebates for older Australian because they save more money through reduced costs in the public health system, which is a system that taxpayers pay for anyway. So this is a false economy and Labor spinning it. They're basically making older Australians pay for their own changes, and it will actually be working age taxpayers who are the ones who will pay. That is not fixing the problem that Mark Butler is talking about. 

SALLY SARA: The Minister says this is to pay for aged care changes that you've been calling for. So this includes restoring funding for things like showers and dressing, continence management and investment in more residential beds in aged care. Do you support the move in that regard? 

ANNE RUSTON: We have been saying right from the get-go that some of the changes that came in in the rules for the Aged Care Act were quite frankly cruel, and one of them was the fact that they had excluded the showers and incontinence management from clinical care. And so, we are pleased that they've made the decision to do a backflip on this, but it should never have happened in the first place. And the fact that the Government itself has actually admitted that these particular things, these provisions to older Australians are "the basics of ageing with dignity" and now we're seeing that they're going make these older Australians wait for another six months before they're able to access this care. It's just plainly cruel. 

SALLY SARA: Should the Government reimburse those older Australians who have been caught up and have paid some of these copayments already and will continue to do so until October? 

ANNE RUSTON: Well, that's a matter for the Government to decide, but the fact that the Government actually has already agreed that these should be included and now they've made the decision they're not going to give them to these older Australians who need them for another six months. That's a question you should be asking Minister Butler - why, if he thinks this is the basics of ageing with dignity, he's making older Australians wait another six month before they get access to it? 

SALLY SARA: Anne Ruston, thank you for joining me this morning. 

ANNE RUSTON: Thanks very much, Sally.

ENDS