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Free RSV vaccinations will be made available to people aged over 75 years.

Older Australians to receive free RSV vaccinations

The federal government program that already offers free jabs during pregnancy will be expanded to include over-75s, amid concerns about grandparents catching the virus from children.

  • Mike Foley

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Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler.

Coalition backs crackdown on NDIS providers as Butler prepares to reveal savings plan

Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler will use a keynote speech next week to reveal Labor’s plans for slowing down growth in the $50 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme.

  • Natassia Chrysanthos and James Massola
Health Minister Mark Butler.

Butler opens the door to NDIS means testing

The health minister has refused to rule out introducing means testing for the National Disability Insurance Scheme in a federal budget that will contain significant reforms to the system.

  • James Massola
The NDIS has blown out to $50 billion. Can Labor stop it from spiralling?

Time may be running out to ‘save the NDIS’. How did it spiral into a $50b problem?

At its best, the NDIS transforms the lives of people who need it. As a government system, though, it is becoming increasingly expensive and prone to misuse.

  • Natassia Chrysanthos
Caroline, Mattea and Sabina Massola inside the James Turrell sculpture at the National Gallery. Mattea,3, has Jansen-de Vries syndrome and uses the NDIS.

My niece needs the NDIS. Yes, it must be cut – but with a scalpel, not a chainsaw

The NDIS must be sustainable – and any rorts stopped. But we can’t deny support for the truly needy. My three-year-old niece is among them.

  • James Massola
Kooyong MP Monique Ryan.

Crossbench MPs warn Labor against slashing NDIS growth in budget

Independents, led by Monique Ryan, said curbing NDIS growth before other systems were set up would push costs onto other areas, such as health and aged care, and urged Labor to find cost savings elsewhere.

  • Natassia Chrysanthos
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Health Minister Mark Butler is mulling major changes to the NDIS as he banks on a lower growth trajectory in next month’s budget.

Two Labor MPs – both of them doctors – say the NDIS must be redesigned

Their call for a system redesign comes as new data reveals people with lower support needs now make up more than 40 per cent of participants in the $50 billion scheme.

  • Natassia Chrysanthos

Labor makes NDIS key to its budget savings plan – and the peak body says providers should lean in

The scheme has become the federal government’s second-fastest growing expense and ministers fear it will lose its social licence without a major rejig.

  • Natassia Chrysanthos
Trade Minister Don Farrell.

‘We think it should be zero’: Farrell vows to fight Trump administration over drug tariffs

The trade minister said he would meet US trade tsar Jamieson Greer and make the case to remove tariffs on pharmaceuticals, as well as on other exports.

  • James Massola and Michael Koziol
US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House in October last year.

US slams Australia’s streaming quotas, PBS in new list of trade grievances

A report by Donald Trump’s trade tsar adds several items to the US’s list of barriers with Australia, including local content rules for streaming platforms and the “unfair” Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

  • Michael Koziol