The gap between Medicine funding in Australia and New Zealand was presented in misleading ways by Act on social media

ACT's Facebook post showed two stacks of pills claiming Australia funded 215 medicines between 2011 and 2025 against New Zealand's 86, represented as ten pills versus two.

Biostatistician Professor Thomas Lumley (University of Auckland) says the stacks visually depict roughly a 5 times difference when the actual figures are a 2.5 times difference. Read literally, ten pills against two would imply Australia funding around 430 medicines.

The press secretary for Todd Stephenson, ACT party's spokesperson for Health, defended the post as "a graphic and not a graph" meant to illustrate a funding gap rather than a precise ratio.

No one claimed it was being read as a graph, but even as a graphic, it is extremely misleading.