A cancer agency seems like a no-brainer -why wouldn’t you do it?

Cancer is one of the biggest killers in this country, it claims 9500 lives a year, and it’s more likely to kill you depending on where you live in this country.

If you live in Southland, you may have to wait four times longer to see an oncologist than in Auckland.

That’s not fair. No one would think it is.

So it would make absolute sense to have a central agency overseeing cancer treatment across the country: sending resources to places where it’s needed, setting up centres of excellence like we do with Starship Hospital in Auckland, making sure that you have the same chance of survival in Southland as you do in Auckland. 

It seemed like a good idea to Labour in opposition. It promised to set up a cancer agency, so why has then has Govenrment indicated it won’t be doing that?

Does it not have the money? Are bureaucrats pushing hard against the idea? Is the Minister busy with other things he might consider more important?

I tell you what: Labour’s learning that promises are easy to make and hard to deliver. 1 billion tree, 100,000 Kiwibuild houses, ending child poverty. But if there’s one promise you don’t break, it’s the one involving life and death.

There is no way Labour will come out of this looking good, not now that National has promised a cancer agency at the weekend.

The trouble for Labour here is that National has pretty much stolen its abandoned policy. Same name. Same slogan: ending ‘postcode loterry’. Same price: $10 million.

If Labour changes its mind and sets up the agency, it’ll look like it’s been pushed into it by National. If Labour doesn’t do it, it’lll look heartless.

Either way, it’s been snookered and National can claim the moral victory here. And it’s a quite a victory to steal from a government that says it’s about kindness and empathy but then doesn’t follow through.