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The Spinoff
4 days ago
- Health
- The Spinoff
Can a new suicide prevention plan save more NZ lives?
The mental health minister says clear milestones and better accountability are among the reasons he's hopeful the plan will work, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. A new strategy with sharper teeth Mental health minister Matt Doocey has unveiled the government's latest Suicide Prevention Action Plan, a five-year strategy aimed at reducing New Zealand's persistently high suicide rate. Doocey said the plan would be markedly different from its predecessor, with a focus on accountability, clear milestones and agency responsibilities, RNZ reports. Among the plan's key actions are opening six regional 'crisis cafes' – 'safe space[s] for someone in distress that [are] staffed by people with lived experience', according to Doocey – improving access to suicide prevention supports, and growing a skilled workforce trained in suicide prevention. The plan also includes new regional services and funding initiatives targeting high-risk communities, including rural areas, mothers and youth. Doocey emphasised that those with experience of suicide played a key role in shaping the plan, which received input from more than 400 individuals and organisations. A high toll of lives lost The plan is aimed at addressing New Zealand's concerningly high suicide rate. In the year to June 2024, 617 people died by suspected suicide in New Zealand, up from 566 the previous year. It should be mentioned here that the chief coroner last year noted that the overall statistical rate of suicide was not considered to have changed since 'fluctuations in rates from year to year are common in suicide data'. Be that as it may, the 2024 figure was almost twice the road toll in the same period, report Kim Griggs and Brittany Keogh in The Post (paywalled). The national rate is now at 11.2 per 100,000 people, with male rates (15.9) far outpacing female rates (6.4). Young people continue to be at greatest risk, with the 20–24 age group recording the highest rate at 19.9. Māori remain disproportionately affected, with a suspected suicide rate of 16.4 – twice that of Pasifika, and more than three times the rate for those of Asian ethnicity. The figures also show regional disparities, with the former Lakes DHB area reporting the highest rate (26.8). Debating the data Last month, a Unicef report made national headlines after it placed New Zealand last among 36 high-income countries for youth mental wellbeing, citing a youth suicide rate more than triple the international average. It also found that New Zealand's children experienced the second highest rate of bullying out of the countries included. However, experts including University of Auckland academics Sarah Hetrick and Sarah Fortune have cast doubt on the report's conclusions. The Unicef analysis was based on confirmed suicide data from 2018–2020, ignoring more recent downward trends in suspected suicides among 15 to 19-year-olds, they said. Unicef Aotearoa's Tania Sawicki Mead explained that 'the report uses like-for-like data' in order to ensure consistency when comparing countries. The role of financial hardship While many factors contribute to suicide rates, they cannot be separated from the broader socio-economic climate. Last year an international academic review of global suicide research, published in the Lancet, found a consistent link between economic downturns – especially rising unemployment – and higher suicide rates. Feelings such as 'defeat and humiliation, entrapment, lack of belongingness, and perceived burdensomeness' can be key precursors to suicidal thinking, the authors wrote. 'Some or all of these psychological processes might be at play for those who are economically disadvantaged.' In the post-Covid era New Zealand has faced a dramatic economic slowdown, with mounting living costs and rising job insecurity. These pressures disproportionately affect those already vulnerable – especially young people, Māori, and rural communities. As Georgie Craw wrote recently in The Spinoff, policies that focus solely on GDP growth miss the point: 'GDP doesn't tell us if children are fed, if they feel safe, if they can access mental health support when they're struggling.' Any serious suicide prevention strategy, experts like the Mental Health Foundation's Shaun Robinson argue, must look beyond clinical services to address the deeper social conditions that foster despair.
The Spinoff
5 days ago
- Health
- The Spinoff
Disposable vape ban begins as regulations tighten again
Starting today, single-use vapes are outlawed, advertising and displays severely restricted, and promotions banned. The new rules have young vapers in their sights, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. Strict new vaping rules kick in today From today, it is illegal to sell or supply disposable vapes in Aotearoa, as sweeping new restrictions on how vaping products are marketed and displayed also come into force. General retailers like dairies can no longer display vapes at the counter, vape stores must keep all products out of public view, and online retailers are barred from showing images of vaping gear. Promotions, loyalty schemes and giveaways are banned. RNZ's Nik Dirga has all the details here. These changes build on a first wave of reforms introduced in December, including stiffer penalties for selling to minors and location restrictions near schools. Associate health minister Casey Costello said the changes are designed to target the cheap, brightly packaged disposables favoured by teenagers. 'We are getting rid of vapes that are most popular among young people, and that can only be positive,' she said. Experts cautiously optimistic but stress enforcement Public health researchers have welcomed the new measures, comparing them to past initiatives to reduce youth smoking. 'Logically, parallel measures that greatly reduce young people's exposure to vaping products will have a similar effect, helping put vapes 'out of sight, and out of mind',' according to a briefing paper published by the Public Health Communication Centre. One of the ban's targets is the psychological hold of disposables on young people. Talking to The Spinoff's Alex Casey in 2022, fashion student Jessica Kitchen observed that her peers prefer them because they 'can kid themselves they're not addicted' when they're not buying refillable vapes. However, experts agree that enforcement will make or break the policy. 'Youth vaping rates in New Zealand are among the highest in the world,' Dr Jude Ball, one of the briefing paper's authors, told The Post's Stewart Sowman-Lund (paywalled). 'If these measures are going to work, the Government needs to implement robust enforcement and monitoring to ensure the law delivers on its promise.' Vape waste: a growing environmental crisis The ban on disposables is not just about public health. Around 844 million vapes are discarded globally each year, according to a UN report based on 2020 data. Five years later, the real number is likely even larger. In New Zealand, has vape litter become disturbingly common, with beach clean-ups reporting a sharp rise in vape and e-cigarette components. These products are an e-waste nightmare: each device combines toxic nicotine residue, plastic, and lithium-ion batteries that can spark fires in rubbish trucks or leach chemicals into the environment, Alex Casey wrote. While industry-led recycling initiatives like Vapo's VapeCycle exist, they remain niche. For most users, there's no easy way to safely dispose of vapes. Comparing the NZ and Australian approach While the rules on buying and selling vapes in New Zealand are now a lot tighter, they're still weak compared to Australia. There, vape sales are restricted to pharmacies, with customers required to speak to a pharmacist about their vape use before purchase. Vapes are sold in plain packaging, and the only available flavours are mint, menthol and tobacco. While most Australian health experts support the strict anti-vaping regulations, some warn they could backfire. A recent University of Queensland study found New Zealand's more permissive regulations may have driven faster declines in smoking rates than the Australian model. Between 2016 and 2023 adult daily smoking rates in New Zealand dropped by 10% per year, while Australia's decline was only half that. 'The larger decline in smoking in New Zealand closely mirrors vaping rates: in 2023, 9.7% of New Zealand adults vaped daily, compared to only 3.5% of Australian adults,' said emeritus professor Wayne Hall from UQ's National Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research.
The Spinoff
6 days ago
- Health
- The Spinoff
Huge rise in surgery outsourcing prompts alarm among doctors
The government's focus on elective surgery wait times has driven thousands of outsourced operations – and fresh warnings about the risks of draining public sector expertise, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. Health targets to be enshrined in law The government has unveiled sweeping amendments to the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act, the 2022 law that dissolved district health boards in favour of a national system, RNZ reports. Health minister Simeon Brown says that 'after years of bureaucracy and confusion, the health system lost its focus', and the amendments will help anchor patient outcomes at the heart of decision-making. Under the changes, infrastructure delivery will become a core statutory function of Health New Zealand, and oversight of Hauora Māori structures will be clarified. Perhaps most importantly, the national health targets – which were scrapped by Labour in 2018 before being resurrected by the coalition – will be put into law. Outsourcing to meet surgical goals To help hit the target of 95% of elective surgeries delivered within four months by 2030, the government last week announced it had funded nearly 10,000 extra procedures since January – most of them through private hospitals. Health NZ's plan is to outsource up to 20,000 low-complexity cases such as hip replacements, cataracts and hernias. What may be good news for suffering patients is bad news for the public health system, many medical staff say. Last month RNZ reported on a Health NZ memo to the minister warning that the high level of outsourcing would hasten an exodus of medical professionals from the public system. Speaking to Morning Report, Auckland radiologist Colleen Bergin echoed that sentiment. 'This will send the workforce into private. The pay is better, the parking is better, the transport is better, everything is better.' Meanwhile anaesthetists warned that siphoning off low-complexity surgeries could dramatically slow the rate at which trainees accrue the requisite number of training hours, and there's currently no system in place to have them train in private hospitals. Who really benefits from outsourcing? While outsourcing may bring quick wins on the government's elective surgery scoreboard, critics argue it's worsening the core problems. Writing in Newsroom, Ian Powell, former head of the Association of Salaried Specialists, says the approach ignores the main pressure point – chronic workforce shortages – while pumping taxpayer funds into for-profit hospitals and incentivising top specialists to shift their hours into the private sector. In some cases, surgeons and anaesthetists are now being paid thousands per shift to take on extra weekend work through in-sourcing arrangements in their own public hospitals. 'It beggars belief how much cash is being thrown around,' one anaesthetist, told Powell, who found that some in the sector could earn up to $15,000 for a single day as a private contractor. Powell argues the result is a system in which public hospitals are left with the more difficult cases and less capacity to treat them. Primary care 'second among equals' While hospitals and wait times dominate headlines, the primary care sector remains underfunded and politically sidelined, GPs say. A recent study showed that despite years of political rhetoric about its importance, primary care has received a flat share of the health budget – just 5.4% on average over the past 15 years, far below the OECD average. Speaking to Mariné Lourens in The Press (paywalled), Christchurch GP Buzz Burrell said the visibility of hospital wins makes them more attractive to ministers. 'It looks good if they fund a raft of very expensive drugs. It looks good if they fund more surgeries.' In contrast, 'if primary care is doing its job brilliantly, it's invisible.' Asked to respond, the health minister said primary care was a 'key priority', pointing to recent announcements including new clinical placements for overseas-trained doctors to work in primary care, extra doctor training places at medical schools and a new 24-hour telehealth service.
The Spinoff
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Spinoff
Golden visas bring in big bucks as one-percenters look to NZ
The government is celebrating a $25 million boost from wealthy migrants, but questions remain about the visa's wider economic impact, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. Big names, big money Immigration minister Erica Stanford is hailing the revamped Active Investor Plus visa as a major success, reports The Post's Thomas Manch, with more than $25 million already transferred and around $1 billion worth of applications in the pipeline. Launched on April 1, the updated scheme lowered the investment threshold, removed the English language requirement, and slashed in-country time obligations. Applicants under the new 'growth' category need to invest a minimum of $5 million in higher-risk assets over three years and spend just 21 days in New Zealand during that time. 'It's been so successful, and the people are amazing,' said Stanford, claiming some applicants are tech co-founders of 'very big, well-known companies that you would probably use every day'. The majority of applications have come from the United States, followed by China, Hong Kong and Germany. Not all capital is created equal It's certainly a tidy sum of money, but will it meaningfully grow the economy? Writing in Newsroom, Brent Burmester, a business lecturer at the University of Auckland, says passive capital injections into funds or existing businesses rarely drive widespread economic transformation. 'Wanting residency and having the capital to secure it is not a measure or indicator of future entrepreneurial breakthrough,' he argues. Instead, Burmester supports prioritising migrants with ambition, skills and drive over those with simply a big chequebook. 'The research is very clear on this: such immigrants grow an economy like ours and give established Kiwis a reason to stay. They typically demand less and deliver more. Not because they are wealthy, but because they are not. Yet.' A residence visa without residents? Under the new rules, investors may spend as little as a week a year in New Zealand, raising concerns about their long-term contributions to the local business environment. If they're hardly ever here, it seems doubtful that they can engage meaningfully with the companies their money supports or with the communities they're theoretically helping grow. Immigration lawyer Nick Mason tells Morning Report the requirement 'does seem very minimal' but in his experience, golden visa holders spend a lot longer in-country than they have to. RNZ's Liu Chen also reports that potential Chinese applicants have found their way into the country blocked due to their inability to use China's Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) scheme, which is virtually the only pathway for individuals from China to transfer capital overseas. One immigration lawyer told Chen that excluding QDII effectively shuts off the golden visa to most Chinese investors, despite the government claiming the programme is 'country neutral'. Parent Boost visa raises equity concerns While wealthy investors are being courted, many migrant families are reacting to a more personal policy change. The new Parent Boost visa, announced on Sunday, will allow parents of citizens and residents to stay in New Zealand for up to 10 years. Though widely welcomed, community leaders warn it is largely out of reach for the working-class migrants who need it. 'For them, the Parent Boost Visa is a promise they cannot afford to fulfill,' writes Vineeta Rao in Indian Newslink. Applicants must meet high financial thresholds – $160,000 in savings for a single applicant with no other income, or $250,000 for a couple – that skew the visa in favour of migrants from wealthier countries. The result is a tiered system, Rao writes, that effectively '[sidelines] many Indian families, despite their cultural and emotional capability to support their parents here'.
The Spinoff
10-06-2025
- Business
- The Spinoff
High cost of dying under scrutiny as MPs call for change
A new select committee report confirms what many already know: funerals in New Zealand are often too expensive and reform is long overdue, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. The high cost of dying in New Zealand is once again in the spotlight, following the release of a health select committee report examining cremation costs and broader funeral affordability. Triggered by a submission from advocacy group Death Without Debt (DWD), the report found that current funeral regulations impose unnecessary expenses and are outdated and difficult to navigate. 'We consider that the current process and regulations impose high costs on the public and create a barrier for people who want to organise their own funerals, particularly when their loved ones are about to be cremated,' the report concluded. The Ministry of Health has committed to reviewing the cremation regulations this year. A nation where dying costs too much New Zealand is one of the most expensive countries in the world in which to die, with funerals starting at around $7,500 for cremation and $10,000 for burial, although they can often cost a lot more, especially when venue hire and catering is included. DWD founder Fergus Wheeler blames the entrenched role of funeral directors, saying families are routinely steered into expensive packages when cheaper, simpler options exist. He argues that with minor changes to online death certification systems, families could bypass funeral directors for cremation approvals, saving themselves hundreds of dollars. The Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand (FDANZ), which represents 75% of the industry, has pushed back against what it called 'allegations of predatory behaviour', RNZ's Kate Green reports. FDANZ says staffing, compliance and property costs are the real factors behind the cost to consumers. But in its submission to the select committee, it agreed reform was needed – particularly a requirement for more transparent pricing and increases in financial aid for those unable to pay. The cost of farewell and the gap in support The issue of funeral affordability has been widely covered in The Spinoff's annual Death Week series, including a 2023 piece by Stewart Sowman-Lund that highlighted the financial stress many families face when a loved one dies. Like everything else to do with money, the poorest among us tend to suffer most, given that the Work and Income funeral grant is just $2,445 – far less than even the cheapest funeral service available. FDANZ chief executive Gillian Boyes is calling for an increase to the grant, along with a lift in the $10,000 asset-testing cap that applies to prepaid funerals, to allow elderly people to set aside more realistic sums before they enter subsidised long-term residential care. She told RNZ's Victor Waters that the government needs to 'provide better support for families, provide clearer rules around funerals, and just help the industry out. But, you know, just changing paperwork is not going to fix funeral debt.' Flameless cremation arrives in NZ As calls grow to reduce funeral costs, alternatives are emerging. One is water cremation, or alkaline hydrolysis, available for the first time in Christchurch. This morning in The Spinoff, Alex Casey reports on the inaugural NZ use of the method, which uses water and alkaline solution to dissolve remains, resulting in 90% less environmental impact than flame cremation. While its main draw is sustainability, it's also slightly cheaper than standard cremation and doesn't require a casket. The arrival of water cremation adds to a growing menu of alternatives, from eco-caskets to DIY funerals. Both the Funeral Directors Association's Boyes and Dying Without Debt's Wheeler, who holds regular public seminars on DIY funerals, say they have been frustrated by bureaucratic inaction on giving people more choice in how they farewell their loved ones. Even if water cremations remain a niche option, their arrival helps bring the prospect of cheaper, more personalised funerals a step closer for everyone. More from The Spinoff:
