Sydney development's uncertain future: Will proton therapy unit become a reality?

Sue Bleasel says she is running out of time. She needs a building and a subterranean concrete bunker to house a highly specialised cancer treatment machine.

If she can find $22 million Ms Bleasel says she can make it happen. "In two months' time, we've got to have this money in," she said.

It's been the 79-year-old's decades' long mission to bring proton therapy, a very precise form of radiation treatment, to Australia so that sick kids can stop travelling overseas for treatment.

On paper it looks like her dream is about to be realised. Ms Bleasel's plan to bring a lifesaving machine to Australia is at the centre of a half-a-billion-dollar Sydney development.

"I sold it to them on the basis of 'this will be the jewel in your crown'", Ms Bleasel said.

The sell worked. The developer absorbed it, the City of Sydney council and the NSW state government green-lit the development, and federal politician Tanya Plibersek also backed it in.

But with construction about to begin Ms Bleasel's proton therapy unit is far from certain. She still doesn't have the money and key organisations say they're not involved.

And we have learned the developer who championed Ms Bleasel's machine made another set of plans for its site — plans that don't include Ms Bleasel or proton therapy.

If Ms Bleasel's dream isn't realised it won't just be a blow for her. It will mark yet another disappointment for families who have young children with rare forms of cancer who've been desperately lobbying for the machine to be brought to Australia.

And it will put more pressure on governments across the country to solve a problem that continues to bedevil them.

An empty bunker

Long before Ms Bleasel and a private developer began spearheading plans for proton therapy in Sydney, Australia had another plan.

The state and federal governments put more than $100 million in public funds towards a new purpose-built building in Adelaide, completed in 2023, with a specialised bunker to house the imported machine.

But the grand plans for a proton therapy unit failed and to this day the bunker is empty.

A US-based company was contracted to deliver a proton therapy unit to Adelaide, but the project collapsed.

In its absence the Australian government pays millions per year for the flights, accommodation and treatment of patients who need to access it overseas.

Five-year-old Charlie Fraser and her mother Kate Fraser recently took one of those flights. Charlie has an exceptionally rare, malignant brain tumour.

She underwent surgery and chemotherapy first, but she also needed radiation. Ms Fraser said her specialists were clear — proton therapy was the best option.

"They said, 'America is the best. You need to go to Florida because proton radiation will give you the best accuracy and the least damage,'" she said.

Charlie and her mother Kate Fraser at their home in regional Victoria.

For kids like Charlie that means after the months of gruelling treatment end they can expect less damage to their organs, fewer side effects and a better quality of life.

So the whole family paused their lives in regional Victoria and went to America — one of more than 20 countries around the world with a proton therapy machine.

What followed was two months in an apartment in Florida, every day marked with a routine of fasting, anaesthetic and radiation for Charlie.

"You can become really quite clinical to what's going on because you become the kid's advocate in understanding their cues, understanding when they've got infections, when their counts are low," Ms Fraser said.

"Then when the emotion does hit you it's like a bloody tonne of bricks."

Despite being on the other side of the world Ms Fraser was able to turn to other Australian parents in the hospital waiting room with their own children, for the same reason.

"Seeing other people who … had to stop their whole lives to come to the other side of the world and leave their support system just shows and reminds you that we shouldn't really have to do this," she said.

"We have world-class healthcare [in Australia]. Our doctors and that are just as good. It's just we need this bloody machine."

Charlie recently returned home from Florida with her dad Daniel Fraser.

Proton becomes Sue Bleasel's mission

For more than two decades, as more Australian families flew back and forward overseas for treatment, Ms Bleasel has tried to plug the country's proton therapy gap.

"I thought, 'gosh, this is going to be a fabulous challenge'", she said.

"And here we are, 20 years later."

During that time Ms Bleasel founded a company called Proton Therapy Australia, wrote business cases, made submissions to government, met with families and fundraised what she could.

Sue Bleasel began working on bringing proton therapy to Australia nearly 30 years ago when she was employed by Japanese tech company Hitachi.

And in 2023, the year the Adelaide building was finished, Ms Bleasel found a foothold with a developer called Kurraba Group.

She heard they had plans to build a life sciences precinct on prime Sydney real estate and decided to pitch her project.

"I went to them and said 'I want to be in your building'", Ms Bleasel said.

"And they said, 'Well, we'll go to state government and we'll do this design … and there'll be a proton facility in it.'"

Kurraba submitted plans for a multi-million-dollar state significant health research facility, complete with offices, laboratories, retail spaces, and a large concrete bunker to house the 100-tonne machine.

As the publicly funded project in Adelaide stalled in late 2024 this privately owned and operated development looked suddenly set to become the country's first proton therapy unit.

The proposed life sciences development in Waterloo was granted state significant development status in 2024.

Ms Bleasel began promoting the project.

But by mid to late-2024, as it gained public momentum, the proton therapy plans were becoming uncertain.

Not just for Ms Bleasel, but also for the developer which was privately telling some investors a very different story.

"[I was told] 'oh no, no, we're not running with that anymore'", one Sydney property investor who looked at the project said.

"We're not running with Sue Bleasel's Proton Therapy Sydney … we're running with someone else."

The investor

When Kurraba's pitch document first landed on the investor's desk he immediately knew he wanted in.

"Who doesn't think that treating kids with cancer is an amazing idea?" said Tony, who asked not be identified by his real name to avoid backlash within the industry.

He said Kurraba pitched him "Australia's first commercial life sciences building" complete with the country's first ever proton therapy machine.

But Tony's due diligence quickly made him think twice.

The plans for the new life sciences hub cover multiple lots in the inner-city suburb of Waterloo.

For one, Ms Bleasel wasn't locked in. She'd been negotiating a long-term lease for a proton therapy facility but had not yet signed an agreement with Kurraba.

And given the building plan was anchored in Ms Bleasel's plan, if she faltered Tony was told it might too.

"Proton was the fundamental reason that tenants and researchers would want to be there," he said.

"If there's no proton, why would they come?"

Tony was also unable to verify the involvement of some of the organisations attached to the project, including prominent cancer research institute Chris O'Brien Lifehouse.

The only evidence he had was a dated non-binding agreement between Ms Bleasel and Chris O'Brien Lifehouse that did not mention the Sydney proton therapy project.

Initially, Chris O'Brien Lifehouse said it was not involved with Ms Bleasel's project and never had been. However, it later clarified that the organisation had been in talks with Sue until mid-2024.