‘Will take a little bit of time to analyse’: Mark Butler unclear on whether US-Iran war worthwhile

“None of us is counting our chickens quite yet ... but we all want to see this egg hatch as soon as it possibly can.”

Asked whether the war has been “worthwhile” he said that assessment “will take a little bit of time to analyse”.

“The damage done to the global economy, the damage done to humanity in the area, in particular, has been profound,” he said.

“Iran was a rogue terrorist state; it had caused damage to our own country on the other side of the world and continued to destabilise that important region. So, the status quo was really difficult to maintain.”

The context: Butler is also holding firm on the cuts planned for the NDIS amid concerns raised to a recent inquiry about the changes.

“Look the direction of travel I think is an important one for us to follow through,” he said, when asked whether he was willing to make significant changes to the legislation put forward.

“This largely reflects reviews and insights that we’ve gathered over the last three years ... I’m utterly convinced this is the right plan for the NDIS and the hundreds of thousands of people that it supports”.

He said he did not want to pre-empt the report, due to be delivered on Tuesday, from the inquiry and said he’s “not saying there won’t be any change”.

“But the direction of travel, the need to make big changes that secure this incredibly important social program for the future, I’m convinced is the right direction of travel.”

One of the concerns raised is to cut funding for community and social participation, which the Disability Discrimination Commissioner warned would leave people isolated and increase the potential for abuse and violence. Asked whether he was willing to shift, Butler said “no” as the government is “focused on this as a really important way to control costs”.

He said this part of the budget had grown “enormously” in five years to $12 billion from $4 billion. “We’ve got to constrain that growth,” he said. “It will still be a very, very substantial budget for people.”

He also pushed back against suggestions people would be forced into riskier and invasive treatments under changes that require participations to exhaust appropriate treatments before accessing NDIS support. He said the government would take a “common sense approach” and would “not expect people to avail themselves of treatments anyone would regard as unreasonable”.

The states and territories also made a joint submission raising concerns, arguing the shift is inconsistent with commitments in national cabinet in January.

Butler said the agreement the premiers and the federal government signed was to return the NDIS to its original purpose and to get back to 5% growth going forward — which is higher than the expectation over the next four years.

“That decision was made way back in 2023 and of course we’ve got to get on with that job.”

“We’re not going to make changes that leave people without supports,” he said.

The Coalition is backing a six-month extension of the inquiry. Butler argued against it.

What they said: “It would be six months more without reform that the scheme needs, six months more of, frankly, people receiving services that aren’t as good as they should be because a lot of the reforms that we’re putting in place are to improve the quality of supports and services to improve arrangements around integrity and fighting fraud,” Butler said about the prospect of a six-month delay.

“It would also mean billions of dollars in the budget, $17 billion would be lost with a 12-month delay, you don’t have to be a Rhodes scholar to work out what a six-month delay would cost ... it will run to billions and billions of dollars”.