Otago cancer professor calls ACT's national cancer centre plan 'magical thinking'
University of Otago professor of cancer medicine Chris Jackson has called ACT's proposal to build a dedicated national cancer centre "magical thinking" and a fantasy, challenging the party's funding model, its centralised delivery structure, and its priorities compared with screening (RNZ).
ACT's policy, titled "Beyond Tomorrow – A Starship for Cancer," sets out a plan to build a national cancer centre with campuses in Auckland and Christchurch, based on an idea proposed by Paul Henry (ACT Party; RNZ). The party puts the indicative capital cost at around $2 billion, with the final figure to be settled through a detailed business-case process — essentially a formal proposal that would test whether the numbers stack up (ACT Party).
ACT's policy page states the cancer centre would be developed using public-private partnerships (where private companies build and sometimes run public infrastructure), philanthropic capital, Crown health investment, and other private investment (ACT Party). The party also proposes establishing a philanthropic foundation to attract funding and removing the existing $33,333 cap on tax credits for donations to help fund the centres (RNZ; ACT Party).
Jackson, speaking to RNZ, said the funding model does not reflect how overseas cancer centres actually operate. He said those centres are typically funded by private patients paying for their treatment, not by philanthropy. He also pointed to the running costs of ongoing cancer care, which run to hundreds of millions of dollars per year, making year-on-year charitable funding unrealistic (RNZ).
Jackson also challenged the centralised model on clinical grounds. He said concentrating treatment in one or two large facilities would worsen existing access problems by drawing specialist staff and resources away from regional areas, and that cancer treatment should be delivered close to home (RNZ).
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of late cancer diagnosis among comparable countries, Jackson said, alongside a problem with access to cancer diagnoses (RNZ). Rather than a large cancer hospital, he argued a lung cancer screening programme should be prioritised because it would meaningfully improve lung cancer cure rates (RNZ).
Jackson is married to Labour MP Rachel Brooking (RNZ).
The broader context here is a familiar tension in Aotearoa's health policy debates: the pull between flagship building projects and the dispersed, community-level investment that clinicians argue produces more immediate results. ACT's proposal leans on a mix of public-private partnerships and philanthropy — mechanisms that have been used elsewhere in the health system but which Jackson says do not map onto the recurring running costs of cancer care. The party's plan to lift the donation tax credit cap signals an intent to unlock private giving at scale, though the clinical counterargument is that philanthropic funding is poorly suited to sustaining hundreds of millions of dollars in annual operating costs.
The regional access question is equally pointed. A centralised model, in Jackson's telling, would draw specialist staff and resources away from the regions, compounding the late-diagnosis problem rather than addressing it. The screening-first argument lands in a policy environment where the case for earlier detection is well established among oncologists, and where the capital required for a screening programme would be a fraction of the $2 billion indicative figure ACT has put forward for its cancer centre.
For those working in Parliament and the health portfolio, the exchange sharpens the lines of a debate that will likely persist if ACT continues to push the policy. The party has framed "Beyond Tomorrow" as a generational investment in cancer infrastructure. Jackson's intervention reframes it as capital directed away from more immediate, evidence-based interventions. The intersection of clinical authority and political identity, given Jackson's marriage to a Labour MP, is also worth noting, though the clinical arguments stand on their own merits regardless of that connection.
ACT has not yet released a detailed response to Jackson's criticisms. The party's policy documents outline the business-case process as the next step, meaning the $2 billion figure remains indicative and the funding model remains a statement of intent rather than a costed plan.
