Protesters received short shrift from ACT party faithful at its South Island campaign launch on Friday night.

There had been tight security at the Christchurch Town Hall, with bag searches for the hundreds of attendees and several people pre-emptively removed before the speeches began.

Three women calling for sanctions on Israel disrupted party leader David Seymour's speech, but were drowned out by jeers from the crowd.

The event comes days after a National Party public meeting in the city was disrupted around half a dozen times by people protesting Israel's wars in the Middle East, mining on the West Coast and southern data centres.

The ACT party had been announcing its proposal for of a national cancer centre, receiving a positive response at the event.

ACT list candidate Paul Henry publicly raised the idea as an off-the-cuff remark and said he expected to be chastised.

But he told the crowd at the launch the party has now adopted the policy, and will build the $2 billion centre if re-elected in November.

Henry said the centre would have two major campuses - one in Auckland and one in Christchurch. He said the project would be funded by public-private partnership financing, donations, existing Crown health investment and private capital.