ACT has promised to grow Pharmac's budget to 12 percent of all government health spending by 2033. That is more than double what it gets now, at 4.9 percent. ACT leader David Seymour said the policy would make the health system more efficient, not just bigger. (RNZ)

Pharmac is the government agency that buys medicines for New Zealanders. It decides which drugs are funded publicly and negotiates with drug companies to get the best price. Seymour said Pharmac would not stop being "hard-ass negotiators" even with a bigger budget. He acknowledged that giving Pharmac more money means other parts of health would miss out, but said nothing that currently exists will be cut. The increase would come from the overall health budget growing over time, not from taking money away from existing services.

ACT has done the numbers. It projects total health spending between $33.4 billion and $36.6 billion in 2027/28, with Pharmac's medicines budget at between $2 billion and $2.2 billion. By 2033/34, Pharmac's funding would reach between $5.4 billion and $6.1 billion out of total health spending projected at $44.9 billion to $51 billion. ACT says New Zealand currently spends about $34 billion on health, with medicines at roughly five percent, or about $1.7 billion. (ACT)

Seymour gave an example. Pharmac funded a drug called Trikafta for cystic fibrosis, a serious lung condition. He said lung transplants for those patients became "nearly unheard of" after that funding. He suggested that funding drugs like WeGovy, used for weight loss, could over a decade lead to less obesity, less diabetes, less kidney disease, less dialysis, and fewer kidney transplants, saving money across the system.

Recent Budgets have been uneven for Pharmac. In the 2024 Budget, it got $604 million in extra funding. In the 2026 Budget, the health system got a $1.5 billion boost, but Pharmac got just $13.5 million of that. The reduced Budget operating spending was announced on 25 July 2026. (NZ Herald)

Seymour has acknowledged that pushing for more government spending on Pharmac was once considered "Act Party sacrilege." According to NZ Herald reporting, $2.4 billion has been directed into Pharmac over recent budgets. (NZ Herald)

ACT has previously said it will create a dedicated strategy for ensuring access to medicines, a commitment dating back to October 2023. (ACT)

Pharmac has been preparing its own Budget 2026 bid. The agency proactively released its 2025/26 Budget bid documents, including initial options for the medicines budget and its operational budget, provided to Seymour as Associate Minister of Health. (Pharmac) Its November 2025 Letter of Expectations progress update states Pharmac will keep working with the Minister on budget bid requests for Budget 2026. (Pharmac) Pharmac's Consumer and Patient Working Group had a meeting scheduled for 14 August 2025 to discuss the agency's 2026/27 budget bid. (Pharmac) The agency also publishes a list of ministerial briefings that includes a "Budget 2026 preparation update" for Seymour. (Pharmac)

ACT has also claimed it provided $1.774 million in extra money to Pharmac to fill a fiscal hole left by Labour. (ACT)

The broader context here is the gap between what ACT is promising and what has actually happened in recent Budgets. The $13.5 million Pharmac received in Budget 2026, against a $1.5 billion health boost, is well below the path ACT is now laying out. Reaching 12 percent of health spending by 2033 would need sustained annual increases to Pharmac's budget far beyond what the agency has received in either of the last two Budgets, even with the large 2024 allocation. Whether a future government, coalition or otherwise, would commit to that scale of shift within the health budget is the central political question the policy raises.