We can't prevent breast cancer. But we can stop it killing so many wāhine.

There's a lot of hope, and genuinely excited progress, in cancer care in Aotearoa right now. On 1 September 2026, the Government launched the New Zealand Cervical Cancer Elimination Plan, setting a national target to reduce cervical cancer to fewer than four cases per 100,000 women by 2040; low enough that it stops being considered a public health problem. We will reach this target through vaccination, screening and early treatment. And new research published in the New Zealand Medical Journal found that more than 90% of New Zealanders, across the political spectrum, want stronger action on cancer prevention and care. People want this fixed.

Breast cancer sits a little differently, though. Outside of the 5 to 10% caused by inherited genes like BRCA1 and BRCA2, the biggest risk factors for breast cancer are being born female and getting older. Neither of those can be changed. We can reduce our risk at the margings, but there is no vaccine on the horizon and we can't prevent breast cancer (yet).

But that doesn't make our ambition any smaller. Our vision is zero avoidable deaths from breast cancer in Aotearoa. We get there not by stopping breast cancer from happening, but by finding it early, treating it quickly, and making sure the medicines that work are actually available.

Right now, we're falling short on all three. Every year, 3,700 New Zealanders are diagnosed with breast cancer and 650 die. More than half of all breast cancers are found only after symptoms appear, not through screening, and those cancers are nearly three times more likely to be late stage. Wāhine Māori are 33% more likely to die when their cancer is found this way, and Pacific women 52% more likely.

And while this picture looks stark, Breast Cancer Foundation NZ is genuinely encouraged by the public appetite for a stronger cancer system, and by the progress being made elsewhere in oncology. Better pathology, better workforce, better funding models: all of it helps breast cancer patients too, even when breast cancer isn't the headline.

But some pain points are specific to breast cancer, and they need dedicated attention. That's why we're asking the next Government for three things.

Fund supplementary screening for high-risk women. Most women are never told if they have dense breast tissue, even though it makes tumours harder to spot on a standard mammogram. We want funded supplementary imaging (contrast enhanced mammography) so high-risk women aren't relying on a test that's less likely to catch their cancer.

Investment in digital pathology. Pathology confirms every single breast cancer diagnosis, yet our public system is still largely manual, right as cancer numbers are set to rise by 50% over the next couple of decades. We want digital infrastructure in place before that bottleneck gets worse.

Funding for the medicines that work. Treatments that are standard care in Australia and the UK still sit unfunded here, sometimes for years. We want the backlog of assessed, ready-to-fund medicines cleared, so surviving breast cancer doesn't depend on remortgaging a house or moving overseas.

None of this happens without people like you. Every submission, every conversation, every donation is part of how we get evidence in front of decision-makers and keep breast cancer on the agenda, election after election. We can't prevent breast cancer. But together, we can make sure fewer people die from it.

Read our full case for the next Government, and see how you can add your voice, in our 2026 Election Manifesto.