PHOTO: ACT candidate and former broadcaster Paul Henry has proposed creating what he describes as a “Starship for Cancer” — a dedicated national cancer centre with major campuses in Auckland and Christchurch.
Paul Henry’s idea for a dedicated national cancer centre apparently began as an almost off-the-cuff suggestion. Now ACT wants to take it to the election. Whether you like ACT, dislike ACT, or have no intention of voting for them, there is something refreshing about the underlying ambition: a politician asking what New Zealand could build for the next 30 or 50 years — rather than simply what might win the next three-year election cycle.
New Zealand politics has become very good at arguing.
Tax cuts versus spending.
More public servants versus fewer.
Left versus right.
Who caused the latest problem.
Who inherited it.
Who can produce the best 20-second line for the 6pm news.
But every so often, somebody throws an idea onto the table that makes you think:
Why don’t we talk about things like this more often?
ACT candidate and former broadcaster Paul Henry has proposed creating what he describes as a “Starship for Cancer” — a dedicated national cancer centre with major campuses in Auckland and Christchurch.
It is ambitious.
It would be expensive.
There are enormous questions around funding, staffing, governance and whether concentrating services in two centres would genuinely improve outcomes nationwide.
All of those questions deserve rigorous examination.
But here’s the important bit:
At least it’s a big idea.
And isn’t that partly what we should elect politicians to do?
Imagine New Zealand 30 years from now
Political debate too often starts with:
“What will this cost next year?”
Perhaps it should sometimes begin with:
“What does New Zealand need in 2050?”
Hospitals.
Schools.
Transport.
Housing.
Energy.
Water.
Research.
Technology.
Infrastructure.
Cancer treatment.
These aren’t three-year problems.
They’re generational ones.
A national cancer centre isn’t something a government announces on Monday and opens on Friday.
It would potentially take years of planning, fundraising, design, construction, recruitment and development.
The politicians who started it might be long gone by the time its greatest benefits were realised.
And that’s precisely why political leadership matters.
From an off-the-cuff idea to actual policy
There is something unusually interesting about how this proposal apparently developed.
When Henry announced in July that he would stand for ACT, he floated the idea of building a world-class cancer hospital.
At the time, he acknowledged the cost could run into the billions and suggested wealthy New Zealanders could contribute substantially.
Henry has now admitted he essentially announced the idea “on the fly” and expected someone within ACT to pull him aside afterwards.
Instead, the response was reportedly:
“We think you might be onto something.”
Now it’s becoming campaign policy.
There’s actually something quite appealing about that process.
An idea.
A conversation.
Then:
Let’s see whether we can actually make it work.
Politics could use a little more of that.
A “Starship for Cancer”
The analogy is powerful.
Starship Children’s Hospital has become synonymous with highly specialised paediatric care in New Zealand.
Henry’s argument is essentially:
Why couldn’t we create something similarly ambitious for cancer?
Under ACT’s proposal, a National Cancer Centre Foundation would be established as an independent, not-for-profit charitable entity.
Rather than relying exclusively on taxpayers, the model envisages funding coming from several sources:
- Crown health investment and Health New Zealand purchasing clinical services;
- philanthropic donations;
- public-private partnership financing;
- other private capital where appropriate.
ACT is now estimating around $2 billion in capital investment would be required.
That’s considerably less than Henry’s original spontaneous suggestion of perhaps $10 billion.
He joked that ACT’s involvement had therefore already saved the country $8 billion.
Whatever your politics, that’s a decent line.
But the philanthropy idea deserves serious attention
One of the more interesting aspects of the proposal is the attempt to unlock private wealth for public benefit.
New Zealand has some extraordinarily wealthy individuals and families.
We have successful entrepreneurs.
Property developers.
Investors.
Agricultural fortunes.
Technology founders.
Business families whose wealth stretches across generations.
What if we made it substantially more attractive for some of that wealth to build national assets?
Not another mansion.
Not another offshore investment portfolio.
Something carrying a family’s name that might still be treating New Zealanders 100 years from now.
Universities, hospitals, medical institutes and galleries around the world have been built partly through philanthropy.
Why shouldn’t New Zealand become more ambitious about doing the same?
ACT wants the donation tax-credit cap removed
That’s why another element of the proposal matters.
ACT says it would remove the cap on donation tax credits to encourage philanthropy.
Interestingly, this isn’t necessarily an issue confined neatly to one side of politics.
National MP Greg Fleming has also publicly criticised the donation tax-credit cap, although Revenue Minister Simon Watts has said there are no plans to change it.
That broader debate is worth having.
Because governments don’t necessarily have to fund everything themselves to make something happen.
Sometimes their job should be to create the conditions that encourage others to contribute.
If someone is prepared to give tens of millions of dollars towards cancer treatment, medical research or another major piece of public infrastructure, shouldn’t our tax system at least be designed to encourage that conversation?
This isn’t really about Paul Henry
And it shouldn’t become about whether you like him.
Henry has spent decades being deliberately provocative.
Some New Zealanders love him.
Others can’t stand him.
That’s irrelevant to whether the idea has merit.
Likewise, this shouldn’t simply become another tribal ACT-versus-Labour-versus-National argument.
A good idea doesn’t suddenly become a bad one because someone wearing the wrong coloured rosette proposed it.
Judge the idea.
Cost it properly.
Stress-test it.
Get oncologists involved.
Get researchers involved.
Ask patients.
Ask Health New Zealand.
Ask universities.
Ask philanthropists.
Ask whether Auckland and Christchurch are the right locations.
Determine how patients from Northland, Gisborne, Taranaki, Southland and everywhere between would access it.
And then publish the evidence.
If it doesn’t stack up, don’t build it.
But if it does?
Get on with it.
New Zealand loses talented people too
There is another compelling part of Henry’s argument.
Comprehensive cancer centres internationally can combine:
clinical treatment,
research,
specialist surgery,
oncology,
universities,
clinical trials,
technology,
scientists,
and private and philanthropic investment.
That matters not only for patients.
It matters for talent.
New Zealand doesn’t merely compete with itself for oncologists, surgeons, scientists and medical researchers.
We compete with Australia.
The United States.
Britain.
Canada.
Europe.
And increasingly sophisticated healthcare systems throughout Asia and the Middle East.
If an exceptional young New Zealand cancer researcher can work in a world-class facility in Sydney or Melbourne with cutting-edge technology, research funding and international clinical trials, what convinces them to come home?
Salary is only part of it.
Brilliant people want to work in brilliant environments.
Build those environments here and perhaps we keep more of them.
And maybe attract some back
New Zealand has an enormous diaspora.
Doctors.
Scientists.
Engineers.
Researchers.
Entrepreneurs.
Academics.
Many left because the opportunities overseas were bigger.
Imagine deliberately creating institutions designed to bring some of those people home.
Not with another government advertising campaign telling expats how wonderful New Zealand is.
Give them something genuinely world-class to come home to.
That is nation-building.
Medical tourism? Why not investigate it?
ACT’s policy also raises the possibility of international patients eventually helping subsidise the centre through medical tourism.
Again, don’t dismiss it automatically.
Investigate it.
Could a world-class New Zealand cancer centre eventually attract wealthy international patients prepared to pay privately for specialist treatment?
Could that revenue help fund research, equipment or services for New Zealanders?
There would obviously need to be strong safeguards ensuring New Zealand patients weren’t pushed aside.
But the mindset is interesting.
Instead of seeing healthcare purely as an ever-growing cost:
Could part of our healthcare capability eventually generate international revenue?
That’s the sort of unconventional question politicians should be willing to ask.
Of course there are enormous problems to solve
Big ideas aren’t automatically good ideas.
And enthusiasm shouldn’t replace scrutiny.
Where would the additional specialist workforce come from?
Would concentrating resources in Auckland and Christchurch disadvantage regional New Zealand?
Could $2 billion achieve greater health gains if spread through existing hospitals?
How much would the Crown ultimately pay each year?
Who carries financial risk under any public-private partnership?
Would charitable funding remain reliable?
How would the new centre integrate with existing cancer services?
Would creating another organisation increase rather than reduce health bureaucracy?
Those aren’t minor details.
They’re fundamental.
But they are reasons to develop the proposal properly, not reasons to stop thinking ambitiously.
New Zealand used to build things
Sometimes it feels as though modern New Zealand has become frightened of scale.
Major projects are announced.
Reviewed.
Re-scoped.
Consulted on.
Cancelled.
Re-announced by the next government.
Reviewed again.
Meanwhile costs increase and another decade disappears.
Previous generations somehow built hydroelectric schemes, universities, hospitals, motorways, airports and national institutions with considerably fewer technological resources than we have today.
They weren’t perfect.
Some decisions were unquestionably wrong.
But there was an underlying belief that New Zealand could build things for the future.
We need some of that confidence back.
Imagine politicians competing over ideas like this
Here’s the political contest we’d actually like to see.
ACT proposes a world-class national cancer centre.
National says:
We think we can build an even better model.
Labour responds:
Here’s our alternative and here’s how we’d fund it.
The Greens ask:
How do we guarantee equitable access regardless of income or location?
New Zealand First asks:
How do we make sure New Zealanders come first?
Te Pāti Māori asks:
How do we dramatically improve Māori cancer outcomes?
Now we have a debate.
Not over whether somebody misspoke in Question Time.
Not over today’s social-media outrage.
But:
What should New Zealand’s cancer treatment system look like in 2040?
That’s politics worth having.
Politics should be about leaving something behind
The best political achievements aren’t necessarily the ones producing the biggest immediate polling bump.
They’re the things that survive governments.
A child treated successfully in a hospital 25 years after it was built doesn’t care which party commissioned it.
A researcher discovering a breakthrough treatment doesn’t care who cut the ribbon.
A family whose mother survives cancer isn’t interested in whether the original business case was announced by red, blue, yellow or green politicians.
They care that somebody had the foresight to build it.
Give us more crazy ideas
Not reckless ideas.
Not fantasy economics.
Not promises written on the back of an election pamphlet.
But ambitious ideas that initially make people say:
“That’s huge.”
Then put the experts around the table and determine whether they’re possible.
Maybe Henry’s “Starship for Cancer” ultimately proves to be the wrong model.
Perhaps independent analysis concludes New Zealand would achieve better outcomes investing that money elsewhere.
Fine.
That’s democracy and evidence doing their jobs.
But imagine if it works.
Imagine if in 2045 New Zealand has one of the world’s leading cancer treatment and research networks.
Imagine Kiwi scientists returning from overseas to work there.
Imagine international clinical trials taking place here.
Imagine wealthy New Zealanders putting hundreds of millions into something that outlives them.
And imagine thousands of families receiving world-class treatment because somebody once stood at a press conference and unexpectedly said:
“Why don’t we build this?”
That’s what forward-thinking politics should look like.
Not merely managing the country we inherited.
Building the country we want the next generation to inherit.