ACT welcomes medicines funding consensus

“ACT welcomes Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins agreeing to work together on long-term medicines funding. Any plan should include a path to close the medicines gap with Australia, as proposed by ACT,” says ACT’s Health spokesperson Todd Stephenson.

“New Zealanders with cancer, rare diseases, and other serious conditions shouldn’t have to wait for another election to find out whether they’ll get the medicines they need.

“That’s why ACT wrote to every political party in July asking them to support our plan to close the medicines funding gap with Australia by 2033.

“New Zealand spends just 4.9 per cent of its health budget on medicines, compared with 12.2 per cent in Australia. Across the Tasman, 142 modern medicines are funded that New Zealanders cannot access through Pharmac. 38 per cent of those are cancer medicines.

“ACT’s plan would increase the share of the health budget spent on medicines by one percentage point each year until we reach Australia’s level in 2033. It would be funded from future increases in the health budget, without new taxes or cuts to existing health funding.

“We’ve shown how we can give Pharmac the certainty it needs to plan ahead, instead of leaving patients dependent on election-year promises. Since ACT took over the portfolio Pharmac has funded 48 new medicines and widened access to a further 88, with around 767,000 New Zealanders benefitting from these decisions in the first year of funding.

“But we should be even more ambitious. Any long-term agreement should also include ACT’s proposal for a National Cancer Centre, with world-class campuses in Auckland and Christchurch.

“Cancer is New Zealand’s biggest killer. Around 1,000 more New Zealanders die from cancer each year than would if our cancer mortality rate matched Australia’s.

“ACT wants to create New Zealand’s Starship for Cancer, bringing together specialist treatment, research, clinical trials and the latest technology. We’ve already made provision for around $2 billion in our fiscal plan to help make it happen.

“It’s encouraging that National and Labour are finally talking about a long-term approach. ACT is ready to work with both parties, and all parties, to make it happen.”