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Closing the Medicines Gap
No New Zealander should have to empty their savings, uproot their family, or leave the country to access medicines Australians receive as a matter of course.
New Zealand spends just 4.9 per cent of its health budget on medicines. Australia spends 12.2 per cent, while the OECD average is 13.3 per cent. Australia funds 142 modern medicines that are not funded in New Zealand, and 38 per cent of those are cancer medicines.
Often, the medicine a patient needs is already on Pharmac's Options for Investment list. Pharmac has assessed it as worth funding, but it remains unavailable because the medicines budget has run out.
Pharmac negotiates hard and assesses which medicines will produce the greatest health gains. Then it runs out of money. Successive governments have given it a second-rate medicines budget and expected first-world results.
ACT will:
Increase the share of the health budget spent on medicines by one percentage point each year, reaching parity with Australia in 2033.
Set Pharmac's future funding increases in advance, allowing it to plan for more medicines on its Options for Investment list.
Fund the change from expected growth in the health budget. It will not require additional taxes or reduce the size of the non-medicines health budget.
Ask other parties to commit to the same seven-year path, so a change of government does not derail it.
In our team's words:
ACT Leader David Seymour says:
“Since taking responsibility for Pharmac and Medsafe, I have heard from hundreds of people whose treatment exists but is still out of reach. Often Pharmac has already assessed the medicine and put it on the Options for Investment list. The money simply is not there.
“New Zealand spends 4.9 per cent of its health budget on medicines. Australia spends 12.2 per cent. ACT would close that gap by lifting the medicines share one percentage point each year until we reach parity in 2033.
“Pharmac bargains hard and gets good value from every dollar. Governments have taken that efficiency for granted and left the budget too small. In Budget 2026, Health got an extra $1.5 billion and Pharmac got $13.5 million. Under our policy it would have received around $320 million more.”
ACT Health spokesperson Todd Stephenson says:
“Australia funds 142 modern medicines that New Zealand does not. Thirty-eight per cent are cancer medicines. Behind those figures are families draining savings, raising money, or moving overseas for treatment.
“We can close the gap without a new tax or cutting the rest of the health budget. Health spending is already growing. ACT would reserve one point of that growth for medicines each year, so more patients get treatment before they end up in hospital.”