Barry Soper: ZB senior political correspondent on the Government offering up additional funding for 54 new medicines

Pharmac's getting a funding boost for new cancer drugs in a pre-commitment from next year's Budget.

The Government's announced money for up to 26 cancer treatments, in an overall package of up to 54 new medicines.

ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry soperwer Senior political correspondence with me in the studio. Hey, Barry,
good afternoon, Heather.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Right.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
So the farm Ac announcement as you predicted.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Absolutely, I said on Friday, there will be six hundred
million dollars on the table. Farmac will be given the money.
They'll be told you've got to cough up for the
cancer drugs that we said that we were going to
deliver during the election campaign.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Can't tell us to make that farm MacX independent. You
can tell them to buy the drugs.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Are they doing the old wink wink luch nights.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Absolutely. Yeah, there's no doubt. I mean there's no doubt
in the government's mind. Anyway. Farm Mac's got other ideas.
They'll be in big trouble because both Christopher Luxen and
David Seymour saying it's a great day for New Zealand
that the's not only thirteen the one they'll be getting
seven drugs. I think of the thirteen and the remainder
are so forget. They've got to wait until October November.

(00:50):
And this is going to mean less spending the next
year's budget because this money is basically predicated on next
year's budget, So.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
The pilfering money from next year's budget meetings right for stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
That's the way it's been done. So that thing is
great because there will be over twenty six I think
it is twenty six cancer treatments and twenty eight other
treatments that will be funded by the six hundred odd
million dollars. Now, Luxon admits they could have handled it
better than announcing those drugs during the election campaign and

(01:26):
they're not delivering them in the budget because there was
such as you know, an absolute backlash. He attempted to
explain how it happened that Farmac was meant to be
independent from the government but ended up as the delivery body.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, it was an attempt to try and get thirteen
cancer drugs that weren't available to New ze Islanders, you know,
by essentially working outside the farming system. As we came
to government, it became pretty obvious we've got a good model,
why would we want to create a second model. And
it's important that we could actually embed it into the
FARMAC model. And that's a lot of what our com
has been over recent months. But we've actually got farmak

(02:03):
able to purchase fifty four drugs that they previously couldn't do.
That are going to be very helpful. This is the
exciting part. This is a great day for many New Zealanders.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, well, well it's a great day for FARMAC, though,
is it. If they really do want to preserve their independence,
let's been.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Compromised, like, let's see the bigger picture right for people
who need to think.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
It's fantastic, but they should have delivered the way it's
normally delivered.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
So it's Parliament sitting this week. Yeah, this week, it's.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Going to be a tough week because of course the
FARMAC thing, they'll hope will deflect from what's been going on.
And yesterday they hope there would be a bit of
deflection in the law and order package they announced on
a Sunday, And of course they also talked about the
military style boot camps for young offenders. Now there'll be

(02:54):
they'll be a there'll be one ten person pilot in
Palmerston North and that'll run for years. So we're still
quite a long way off those boot camps now. Simeon
Brown he had a very busy week next week and
he'll be no last week sorry, and he'll be no
doubt accounting for it this week because he was between

(03:14):
North Northland and over the past week first responding to
that pylon's collapse, and then our terri's are running aground.
So you know, what a terrible time.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
I'm just loving the story about the power pylon.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
Well, I guess worse than we thought. It wasn't just
two floody leagues, it was three exactly.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
It's unbelievable that why would you take the bolts out
of a pylon that's carrying Goodness only knows how much
weight and electricity was a well, who knows. They're going
to have an independent inquiry. I'm sorry. Like I said
last week, I volunteered to head that inquiry because it

(03:57):
was pretty obvious what happened. You only had to look
at the on with its legs in the air and
clean bolt holes. Those plates would have been destroyed when
it fell over if in fact the bolts were still
in place. So it was pretty obvious. But what an
abomination that is.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Really, do you think you're going to make it into
the Jinda Ardurn movie? Will you just be cast as
sort of generic generic arking dog from this side, You'll
just be the like the entire press pack is having
a crack at her represents Barry Soper.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Do you think I think you'll be the villain?

Speaker 3 (04:31):
She used to call me a grumpy old man at times.
I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Very sober, Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Could you do that?

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Seeing your political correspondent.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
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