National moving in ACT’s direction on medicines

“National’s commitment to increase medicines funding while cutting lower-priority government spending is a welcome move in ACT’s direction and a great sign for the next Coalition. A stronger ACT presence in the next Government will make sure we go further and faster on both,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“ACT wrote to every party leader in July asking them to support our plan to close the medicines funding gap with Australia. National’s announcement doesn’t go as far as ACT’s policy, but it is a welcome sign that we can work together in Government to get more medicines to New Zealanders.

“As Minister responsible for Pharmac this term, I’m proud of the progress we’ve made. Pharmac now has its largest ever four-year budget of $7.2 billion. It has made 135 decisions to fund or widen access to medicines, including 47 cancer medicines, with more than 680,000 patients expected to benefit in the first year of funding.

“Last election National campaigned on breaking the Pharmac model by directing what medicines should be funded. I’m pleased that as a coalition we prevented that from happening and there is now consensus over how we can fund important medicines most efficiently.

“Still, 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.

“National’s policy equates to about one third of what ACT is proposing, but we are confident we can push the coalition to go further and faster to reduce waste and fund more medicines.

“We also welcome National coming round to our position that MFAT spending should be reduced. ACT has pushed for savings in this area during the current term without support from our coalition partners, next term it looks like we’ll be successful.

“In 2023 MFAT spent $23 million on a UN women and UN Environment Programme project called EmPower, which aims to “accelerate gender-responsive climate change mitigation”. They are still spending millions every year helping other countries prepare for meeting targets of the Paris Agreement. We can’t afford to keep exporting taxpayer money. We’ll have more to say on this shortly.

“This is good news for patients across New Zealand, and another example of ACT driving the change within the coalition.”