I’m going to say something controversial.
We need to stop dancing around the edges of this debate and start staring directly into the deep, dark corner called truth.
The Government deserves criticism — a lot of it — for failing some of our most vulnerable people when it comes to access to life-saving and life-extending medications. Whether commitments around cancer drugs evolved from coalition negotiations, budget trade-offs, or political horse-trading is almost beside the point now. Families were given hope. Patients were promised change. And many are still waiting.
But if we are being honest, the Government should not be the only target of our anger.
The pharmaceutical companies should not escape scrutiny either.
For years, these corporations have mastered the art of presenting themselves as heroes of modern medicine. They tell us — correctly — that they invest billions into research and development. They tell us they support poorer nations with aid programmes and discounted medicines. Fair enough. Research costs money. Innovation matters.
But let’s talk about the numbers they do not like talking about.
In the United States alone, spending on medicines reached around $574 billion USD in 2022. Globally, medicine spending hit approximately $1.48 trillion USD the same year and is projected to exceed $1.9 trillion USD by 2027.
To put that into perspective, New Zealand’s entire tax revenue in 2023 was about $104.5 billion NZD.
In other words, the pharmaceutical industry generates revenues that dwarf the economies of countries like ours. These companies make more money than entire regions of the Pacific combined. Meanwhile, ordinary people are selling homes, emptying savings accounts, and begging strangers online for the chance to stay alive.
One report found that ten major pharmaceutical companies made more than $112 billion USD in profits in 2022 alone — at a time when one in four Americans could not afford prescribed medications.
That is not healthcare. That is a marketplace built around survival.
Several years ago, I became involved in campaigns highlighting inequities in access to cancer drugs here in New Zealand. I met families from every corner of this country who had been abandoned by a system that told them their lives came down to cost-benefit calculations.
I watched the inspiring and heartbreaking journey of Wiki Mulholland and the relentless advocacy of her husband Malcolm. I spoke with countless New Zealanders who sold family homes, launched Givealittle pages, and exhausted every possible avenue trying to access treatment.
One woman sold both her own wedding ring and her mother’s ring, raising around $8,000 in desperation. She told me she only wanted enough time to watch her children grow up.
She did not survive.
I spoke with families in rural communities struggling simply to travel to Auckland for radiation therapy — choosing between fuel in the car and food on the table. These were not only the poor or disadvantaged. These were middle New Zealand families. Working people. Taxpayers. Parents. Grandparents.
Then came political promises.
Christopher Luxon stood before the country and acknowledged what so many already knew — that New Zealand’s cancer survival rates lagged behind Australia because we fund fewer medicines. He pointed to treatments available across the Tasman but denied to New Zealanders here at home.
Most importantly, he promised people they would no longer need to leave the country, mortgage their homes, or start fundraising campaigns for treatment already proven to work elsewhere.
That promise mattered.
Because when someone is fighting cancer, hope matters.
And yet here we are.
The Government now finds itself trying to explain delays, budget constraints, and policy complications while people continue to wait. Every day matters when you are living with an aggressive illness. Every delay carries consequences that politicians rarely have to face personally.
At the same time, this Government has found billions for tax cuts, regional development funds, and countless other political priorities. Ministers now admit some New Zealanders will actually be worse off under parts of those same tax changes.
To be blunt, it feels like a betrayal.
And this is where the real truth sits: both politicians and pharmaceutical giants are failing ordinary people.
Governments should not make promises to vulnerable patients they cannot or will not deliver on. Pharmaceutical companies should not be allowed to generate obscene profits while pricing life-saving medicines beyond the reach of ordinary families and smaller nations.
Somewhere between political spin and corporate greed are real human beings simply trying to stay alive long enough to see another birthday, another Christmas, another year with their children.
That should matter more than balance sheets, polling numbers, or shareholder returns.
But increasingly, it feels like it does not.
Radio Waatea and its Board would like to advise that the opinions expressed in this article are those of Matthew Tukaki and not necessarily the views of Radio Waatea, its management, or its Board.
