2026 New Zealand general election: Health policy comparison

The main health-policy questions in the 2026 election are how parties would make it easier to see a GP, reduce hospital waiting lists, recruit and retain health workers, and pay for additional services.

It is useful to compare four areas separately:

• GP access: appointment availability, cost, workforce and after-hours care.
• Hospital waiting times: elective surgery, specialist appointments, emergency departments and diagnostic tests.
• Staffing: doctors, nurses, specialists, midwives and other health professionals.
• Funding: additional health spending, primary-care funding and how proposed improvements would be financed.

The comparison below focuses on national party positions and distinguishes announced policies from broader campaign commitments.

1. What each party is proposing

The following reflects policies available by 30 October 2026. The election is scheduled for 7 November 2026.

National

Continuity and capacity expansion

National's approach is largely to continue its current health strategy.

• GP access: Expand urgent and after-hours services and online GP consultations. Budget 2026 provides for 53,000 additional general-practice enrolments.
• Hospital waiting times: Continue using public and private hospitals to increase elective procedures. Its Elective Boost programme has delivered a reported 40,000 procedures.
• Staffing: Increase medical training places at Auckland and Otago universities and establish the Waikato Graduate School of Medicine.
• Funding: Budget 2026 provides for an additional 24,000 planned-care treatments, 42,000 inpatient episodes and 26,000 emergency department events.

National emphasises measurable health targets, greater treatment capacity and fiscal restraint rather than a major redesign of the system. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryElection 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery

Labour

Affordable primary care and additional capacity

Labour's central argument is that people should not have to delay seeing a doctor because of cost.

• GP access: Three free GP or nurse consultations annually for every person entitled to publicly funded healthcare, through a new Medicard.
• GP workforce: An interest-free Family Doctor Loan Scheme to help doctors buy into owner-operated practices. It aims to help generate more than 4.5 million additional GP appointments annually through targeted funding, phone triage and technology.
• Hospital waiting times: An Emergency Department Recovery Plan involving more GP appointments, more nurses and faster emergency care. It also proposes addressing hospital building and maintenance backlogs.
• Staffing: Guarantee jobs for eligible New Zealand-trained graduate nurses from 2027 and provide 24 paid trainee sonographer positions.
• Funding: A proposed 28% capital gains tax on profits from specified residential investment and commercial property, with revenue ring-fenced for healthcare.

Labour also proposes removing the $5 prescription charge from July 2027. Labour's 2026 Election PoliciesAffordable HealthcareElection 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery

Green Party

Publicly funded healthcare and workforce investment

The Greens propose a broader expansion of publicly funded services.

• GP access: Move towards fully publicly funded primary healthcare, reducing or removing the cost barrier to visiting a GP.
• Hospital waiting times: Increase investment in public healthcare capacity, prevention and community services, with the aim of reducing pressure on hospitals.
• Staffing: Improve safe staffing levels, wages, pay parity and working conditions, particularly for primary-care nurses and hauora providers.
• Rural access: Expand mobile healthcare, dental and mental health services.
• Funding: Increase public investment in health, including Pharmac funding and primary-care services.

The Greens also propose publicly funded adult dental care and expanding the health workforce through increased training and retention. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryNZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident Doctors

ACT

Efficiency, provider choice and expanded clinical roles

ACT places emphasis on getting more capacity from existing health professionals and providers.

• GP access: Allow pharmacists and other qualified health professionals to provide more routine healthcare, including managing some long-term conditions and ordering blood tests.
• Hospital waiting times: Make greater use of private healthcare providers to reduce public hospital waiting lists.
• Staffing: Expand the scope of practice for existing health professionals so that doctors can concentrate on more complex cases.
• Funding: Increase the proportion of the health budget spent on medicines by one percentage point annually, aiming to reach 12% by 2033.
• Major facilities: Support a national cancer centre with campuses in Auckland and Christchurch, using private investment, public-private partnerships and existing health funding.

ACT supports the Waikato medical school following its review of the project. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryNZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident Doctors

New Zealand First

Waiting-list fund and international recruitment

NZ First has proposed a specific mechanism for tackling waiting lists.

• GP access: Introduce nurse practitioner-led digital health clinics in areas where it is difficult to recruit doctors.
• Hospital waiting times: Establish a $925 million annual GP-controlled Waitlist Reduction Fund. GPs would be able to purchase approved specialist consultations and operations for patients waiting for treatment.
• Staffing: Estimate that approximately 2,000 additional doctors are needed and prioritise international recruitment. It also proposes reducing administrative burdens on GPs.
• Primary care: Restore greater professional autonomy in general practice and introduce health coaches.
• Funding: Allocate an additional $1.3 billion to medicines and replace Pharmac with a new medicines agency.

The proposed waiting-list fund is particularly notable because it would give GPs a role in arranging treatment rather than relying exclusively on hospital waiting-list processes. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryElection 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery

Te Pāti Māori

Māori-led healthcare and prevention

Te Pāti Māori focuses on changing how healthcare is governed and delivered.

• GP access: Strengthen Māori-led and community-based health services, with culturally safe and accessible care.
• Hospital waiting times: Its emphasis is on prevention and earlier intervention to reduce the need for crisis and hospital-based treatment.
• Staffing: Strengthen Māori participation in health service delivery and develop Māori-led solutions. It has not published a comparable detailed national staffing target.
• Funding: Shift resources towards prevention, whānau wellbeing and Māori-led healthcare.
• Governance: Rebuild and strengthen a Māori-led health authority.

Its approach puts particular emphasis on addressing health inequalities and improving accountability to Māori communities. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryNZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident Doctors

Opportunity Party

Long-term funding and planning

Opportunity's central proposal is a cross-party, 10-year health plan called Healthy People.

• GP access: Increase the proportion of health funding directed towards primary care.
• Hospital waiting times: Focus on earlier intervention, prevention and stronger community healthcare to reduce pressure on hospitals.
• Staffing: Establish longer-term workforce planning, including medical training and clinical placements.
• Funding: Gradually increase public health expenditure from approximately 7.4% to 9% of GDP.
• Planning: Seek agreement across political parties so that long-term health investment is less vulnerable to changes in government.

Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryNZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident Doctors

2. Side-by-side comparison

Party	GP access	Hospital waiting lists	Workforce priority
National	More online, urgent and after-hours care	More public and private capacity	More medical training
Labour	Three free visits annually	ED recovery and more capacity	Graduate nurse jobs, GP recruitment
Greens	Fully publicly funded primary care	Expand public and community services	Better pay, safe staffing
ACT	More services through pharmacies	Use private providers	Broader professional scopes
NZ First	Digital clinics and nurse practitioners	$925m annual waiting-list fund	Recruit 2,000 additional doctors
Te Pāti Māori	Māori-led community care	Prevention and earlier intervention	Māori health workforce
Opportunity	More primary-care funding	Prevention and long-term planning	Long-term workforce strategy

3. How do their funding commitments differ?

There are some substantial differences in how parties intend to finance their proposals.

Party	Funding approach
National	Existing health-budget direction, Budget 2026 allocations and fiscal restraint
Labour	Ring-fenced revenue from a proposed targeted capital gains tax
Greens	Greater public investment in healthcare
ACT	Reallocation within health spending, including increased medicines funding
NZ First	Dedicated $925m annual waiting-list fund and additional medicines funding
Te Pāti Māori	Redirect resources towards prevention and Māori-led services
Opportunity	Increase health expenditure towards 9% of GDP

An important distinction: a proposed funding allocation is not the same as a fully costed and operational plan. Some commitments have specific funding mechanisms, while others describe broad spending priorities. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryNZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident DoctorsLabour's 2026 Election Policies

4. What about the shortage of doctors and nurses?

This is one of the biggest issues behind all the parties' proposals.

Three approaches stand out:

1. Training more professionals: National's expansion of medical training, including the Waikato medical school, is a long-term approach. The first 120 graduate-entry students are planned for 2028.
2. Recruiting and retaining existing professionals: NZ First emphasises international doctor recruitment, while the Greens focus on working conditions, pay parity and retention. Labour proposes guaranteed employment for eligible graduate nurses.
3. Making better use of existing professionals: ACT proposes giving pharmacists and other health professionals more responsibility. NZ First proposes nurse practitioner-led digital clinics.

These approaches address different parts of the workforce problem. More medical students will not immediately resolve current GP shortages, because training takes years and graduates must also complete further clinical training.

The New Zealand Medical Journal identifies workforce availability, clinical placements and specialist training as major constraints on delivering election promises. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and deliveryNZ Election 2026 Health Policies for Resident Doctors

5. What should voters look at when comparing the promises?

I would pay particular attention to five practical questions:

• Actual GP availability: Will people be able to get an appointment within a reasonable time, particularly in rural communities?
• Affordability: Will GP consultations become cheaper or free, and who qualifies?
• Waiting-list reductions: Are parties promising additional operations, or simply changing how existing waiting lists are managed?
• Staffing commitments: Are there funded jobs, training places and retention measures behind the promises?
• Long-term funding: Is the funding identified, and will it cover ongoing salaries, hospital beds, equipment and operating costs?

One particularly important distinction is that making GP visits free does not automatically make appointments available. Equally, funding more hospital operations does not guarantee shorter waits if there are insufficient surgeons, nurses, theatres or beds.

The New Zealand Medical Journal makes this distinction explicitly in its October 2026 election analysis. Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery

6. Useful sources for checking the policies

These are useful starting points for reading the original commitments and independent comparisons:

• New Zealand Medical Journal – Election 2026 and health: promises, priorities and delivery (9 October 2026).
• New Zealand Resident Doctors' Association – 2026 election health and workforce policy summaries (party-by-party comparison).
• Labour – 2026 election policies.
• APEX – 2026 election policy summaries (health and industrial workforce policies).

Overall: The parties are offering quite different routes towards improving healthcare. National emphasises expanding capacity and continuing its current approach; Labour focuses on affordability and primary-care access; the Greens on publicly funded services and workforce conditions; ACT on provider choice and efficiency; NZ First on a dedicated waiting-list fund and doctor recruitment; Te Pāti Māori on Māori-led healthcare; and Opportunity on sustained investment through a 10-year plan.

The key question is not just how much each party promises to spend, but whether it can provide enough qualified people and facilities to turn that spending into shorter waits and more accessible GP appointments.