Government flags aged care investment and fresh NDIS crackdown in National Press Club speech

Health and NDIS Minister Mark Butler used a National Press Club address on 22 April 2026 to pitch a two-track care agenda: a major aged care funding push tied to demographic pressure, and a tougher legislative drive to slow NDIS cost growth while preserving the scheme’s future. In the speech, Butler said the federal budget would invest $3 billion in aged care and that the government would also move to curb what it sees as unsustainable growth and structural weaknesses in the NDIS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VJa-mt-uTk

Butler argued Australia is entering a sharp ageing wave, noting that the number of Australians aged 80 and over grew by about 70,000 in the four years from 2012, but is expected to rise by more than 300,000 over the coming four years. He said the budget response would include support for an additional 5,000 aged care beds each year, more home care support, and better care options for older Australians.

The speech also outlined targeted dementia measures. Butler said the government would invest more than $200 million for 20 additional Specialist Dementia Care Units and to expand the Hospital to Aged Care Dementia Support Program, aimed at helping older people move from hospital into residential care. He also said the government would spend around $1 billion so that showering, continence management and dressing are treated as free services under the Support at Home program, alongside clinical care.

To help fund the aged care shift, Butler said the budget would wind back the higher private health insurance rebate currently paid to Australians over 65, returning it to the same level available to other adults. He framed the change as a matter of intergenerational fairness and said the savings would be redirected into aged care.

On disability policy, Butler described the NDIS as “one of Australia’s great human rights achievements” but said it must be made sustainable for future generations. He said the government inherited a projected NDIS growth rate of 22% in 2022, had sought to bring that down to 8%, and earlier this year agreed through National Cabinet to target 5% to 6% growth, or lower.

Butler said the pressure on the scheme had worsened, citing advice from the Scheme Actuary that NDIS spending had increased by $13 billion over the next four years. He also said legal decisions and legislative uncertainty had limited the agency’s capacity to implement reforms, and announced that the rollout of New Framework Planning would now begin on 1 April 2027, instead of July 2026.

A major focus of the speech was fraud and market integrity. Butler said fraud in the NDIS was being driven not by participants or families, but by providers and criminal actors exploiting weaknesses in the design of the scheme. He said the government’s Fraud Fusion Taskforce had found the NDIS contained all eight recurring design failures seen in vulnerable programs and none of the seven core building blocks of high-integrity systems.

He also singled out social and community participation spending as a major budget problem. Butler said that category had risen from $4 billion a year five years ago to more than $12 billion this year, and could reach around $20 billion by the end of the decade if left unchecked. He said the government would legislate to reset the cost of that stream back to last year’s level and stop what he called runaway growth.

The speech amounted to an attempt to redraw the political map around care spending: more public investment where the government says dignity demands it, and tighter controls where it says poor design, provider abuse and inflation are threatening long-term legitimacy. The practical test will come when the promised legislation reaches Parliament and the budget measures move from podium lines to program rules. This last sentence is an inference based on the policy measures Butler announced and his statement that he will introduce legislation when Parliament returns.