Health Minister Mark Butler says puberty blocker science ‘contested and evolving’ after New Zealand issues ban
Health Minister Mark Butler has revealed he spent ‘quite a lot of time reading and thinking’ after his UK Labour counterpart banned the prescription of puberty blockers late last year.
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler says the science underpinning the prescription of puberty blockers to children is “contested and evolving”, after New Zealand on Wednesday moved to ban the practice, following similar steps in the UK, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Mr Butler indicated he remained comfortable with his government’s position of asking the National Health and Medical Research Council to review gender-affirming care – with recommendations regarding puberty blockers due mid next year and the final report not due until 2028.
However, he gave the strongest indication yet of the extent to which policy changes overseas have weighed on his mind, revealing he spent “quite a lot of time reading and thinking” about Australia’s response after his UK Labour counterpart, Wes Streeting, in December banned the sale and supply of puberty blockers indefinitely.
The New Zealand government will halt all new prescriptions of puberty blockers from December 19, with existing youth gender service patients still able to have access to hormone suppressants, but an injunction placed on new cases pending the outcome of a British clinical review set to return results by 2031.
Asked to respond to the New Zealand decision during a visit to Melbourne on Thursday, Mr Butler echoed comments he made last week highlighting his commissioning of the NHMRC review, and deflecting responsibility for decisions around the prescription of puberty blockers to state governments.
“They are not PBS prescriptions. They are prescriptions made off-label by clinicians employed by state governments. So ultimately, state governments have to decide whether or not these prescriptions are delivered by their services,” Mr Butler said.
“Our responsibility as the commonwealth is to ensure that state governments, parents, and the community have the best possible clinical advice from the pre-eminent authority in this area, which is the National Health and Medical Research Council.”
In response to being asked whether he personally believes puberty blockers are safe and reversible, as gender clinicians claim, Mr Butler said he had asked the NHMRC for advice on the issue.
“They described this area to me, if I remember the words right, as ‘contested and evolving’,” Mr Butler said.
“I think that’s pretty compelling, that they say this is a contested area, and it’s evolving. It is still a relatively new model of care anywhere around the world, and as you know … it is highly contested by clinicians and by people more broadly in the community.
“That’s why I thought it was so important, particularly in a contested space, that we ask a pre-eminent authority to issue guidelines, which I hope will be, once they’re issued, regarded by everyone, including state governments, as deeply compelling, whatever they end up deciding, but ultimately, that’s a matter that’s still under way.”
In May, contributor to The Australian Bernard Lane obtained documents under Freedom of Information demonstrating Mr Butler had asked health bureaucrats last December for a briefing on “the weight of evidence in support of a pause or ban (of puberty blockers) in the Australian context” – the day after Mr Streeting banned them in the UK.
Asked about why he sought this briefing, Mr Butler said the UK’s Cass Review had probably been the “highest-profile” review of treatment of gender dysphoric children.
“The decisions taken by (Britain’s) Health Secretary Wes Streeting were widely reported, were the subject of significant debate here in Australia, as well as other countries, and so yes, that did capture my attention, and I spent quite a bit of time reading and thinking about what a proper Australian response to that should be,” Mr Butler said.
“(I) then asked the NHMRC as well as the department to give me options about what the commonwealth could do to help settle a position that was less contested than perhaps the position we have right now.”
Asked whether he was comfortable with the fact that the NHMRC’s final report is not due until 2028, Mr Butler said: “This is work that they’ve been conducting for decades. They don’t do it, you know, with haste. They do it carefully, and I think that that is reflected in the level of respect and confidence that people have in their guidelines.
“But I did say to the council that I thought that was a long time period to wait, particularly around the issue of prescription of puberty blockers, which is the more contested area in this space, and that’s why we agreed upon an expedited piece of advice that’s due in the middle of 2026 on that issue in particular,” he said.
The NHMRC earlier this week announced the make-up of its gender guidelines development committee.
Among the members named is Associate Professor Kenneth Pang, a consultant pediatrician and research lead at the Royal Children’s Hospital’s Department of Adolescent Medicine, and a leading proponent of gender-affirming care.
Asked whether it was a conflict of interest for Associate Professor Pang to be on the committee, given he is one of four authors, with Michelle Telfer, of Australia’s gender-affirming care guidelines, Mr Butler said the NHMRC worked under a statutory charter, “independent from any minister”.
“I know that the NHMRC is approaching this very sensitive, important piece of work carefully to ensure that all voices are heard, including parents, who have obviously a significant stake in this as well,” he said.
“I have complete confidence in the NHMRC to ensure that these committees are representative, that they accommodate all views in again, what I have had described to me as a contested and evolving area of clinical practice.”
Liberal senator Claire Chandler said the Albanese government’s “lazy reluctance to seriously and swiftly examine the gender medicine industry” meant Australia was significantly lagging behind other countries, including New Zealand.
“If Mr Butler had commissioned an inquiry into puberty blockers when the Cass Review was finalised in early 2024, or when I first called for an Australian independent inquiry in mid-2023, or when countless concerns were being raised publicly by detransitioners and their families before that, he could have had his own report done by now,” Senator Chandler said.
“It shouldn’t have taken the UK Labour government banning puberty blockers for our own Health Minister to suddenly cast his mind to this issue. The alarms have been sounding on the gender medicine industry for years, and the Albanese government has chosen to ignore them.
“I certainly hope Mr Butler has picked up the phone to his Kiwi counterpart to understand what work the New Zealand government has been doing in this space, because it sounds like they’re light years ahead of Australia.”
Women’s Forum Australia CEO Rachael Wong said New Zealand had taken a “principled, evidence-based step to protect vulnerable children and young people.”
“Australia now stands increasingly isolated as comparable nations move away from experimental medical interventions that lack a robust evidence base,” Ms Wong said.
“The Health Minister now admits the science behind puberty blockers is ‘contested and evolving’. If that is the case, why is Australia still allowing children to be placed on these drugs without the same urgent protections adopted in New Zealand and the UK?
“It is not enough for the minister to ‘read and think’ while Australian clinicians continue to prescribe drugs that overseas authorities have paused or prohibited. Children deserve action – not contemplation.
“If the science is contested, children should not be the test subjects while we await the result of the NHMRC review. At a bare minimum, there should be an immediate pause on puberty blockers for gender-distressed youth pending the outcome. Every month of delay increases the risk of irreversible harm.”
Ms Wong said Mr Butler’s suggestion that the prescription of puberty blockers was a state responsibility was “misleading”.
“What matters here is TGA regulation, which is entirely federal. As the minister notes, puberty blockers used for gender distress are prescribed off-label, meaning they have never been evaluated by the TGA for safety or efficacy in this context,” she said.
“The commonwealth routinely restricts medicines when risks emerge, and it has the power and obligation to do so here. Australia cannot hide behind bureaucratic distinctions while other nations ban and pause these treatments. Children deserve immediate safeguards, not jurisdictional buck-passing.”
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