Asian colonisation shortens life expectancy

The Haps

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ACT’s rural MPs got a tremendous reception at the Fieldays, perhaps because ACT was the only party that showed up with rural policies. At one end of the spectrum was Labour, who cancelled their stall, and announced a bus policy for city slickers. ACT meanwhile showed up with real farmer MPs and announced:

• A rural visa for migrant farm workers

• Renegotiating the Paris agreement to accept methane is different, or leaving the agreement

• A suite of rural crime policies including 100,000 patrol hours, a dedicated rural crime unit, and tougher penalties for poaching and stock theft

• Letting farmers graze overgrown DOC land, a win-win

Asian colonisation shortens life expectancy

That is an insane headline, but the only logical conclusion you can take from the latest life expectancy data if you follow the popular views of race and healthcare in New Zealand. We are constantly told Māori live shorter lives thanks to our nation’s original sin of colonisation, and that nurses and doctors must be racist even if they don’t realise it. How then, to explain Asian women living to 89 on average? Is colonisation affecting everyone except Asians?

Health New Zealand published new data on Friday, showing how life expectancy has changed in New Zealand since 2001. It is fantastic news all around. Despite everything going on, we can all expect to live longer.

It’s always worth reminding your socialist friends, 200 years of capitalism has doubled life expectancy from about 40, as it was for thousands of years, to about 80 now.

Leftists love a good whinge. They don’t like the industrial revolution, or trade, or business, fossil fuels, or anything to do with capitalism, really. But even they can’t be too upset about getting an extra life.

This latest data shows the trend is continuing in New Zealand. Women can now expect to live to 84, up from 81 at the start of the century. For men, the figure is 81, up from 77. We could also point out that the healthcare system must also be sexist, and women are oppressing men, but we’ll leave it.

The study presents breakdowns based on wealth, regions, and ethnicity, and also causes. It turns out money makes you live longer, wealthy men live to 83, wealthy women to 86.

The biggest gains in life expectancy have been made by Māori, rising from 72 to 77, continuing a trend that’s been measured since the 1950s. Pacific life expectancy rose from 74 to 77. Every group in the study is living longer.

Asians have a life expectancy of 88, 87 for men and 89 for women. And this is where the entire argument about racism falls apart. Free Press is deeply connected to the Asian community. Sadly, we see that Asian New Zealanders do face abuse and discrimination in everyday life. They are far from the majority and most of New Zealand’s culture and institutions certainly weren’t designed with them in mind.

Everything that the left say about Māori in relation to healthcare and life expectancy is true of Asian New Zealanders but somehow they’re still living longer than anyone.

The same goes for interventions designed to fix ethnic differences. There certainly are not special entry criteria for Asian doctors. There generally aren’t special programs for hospital staff to learn Chinese and Korean. There hasn’t been preferential access to medicines or Asians being bumped up waiting lists… And yet, Asians still live longer.

The Study does give other reasons why people live different lengths of time. Wealth is one we’ve mentioned. Regions are another. The Study gives detailed breakdowns of both.

The Study also attributes differences to activities. Men lose nearly a year to accidents, and nearly another year to ‘chronic disorders,’ which sounds like men take more dangerous risks and or do more dangerous work then women.

Heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, and traffic accidents and other preventable illnesses explain most (but not all) of the difference between Māori and non-Māori life expectancy. The Study doesn’t appear to explain why Asian New Zealanders live longer, or at least it’s not in the report.

One of the biggest changes in the last twenty years is that vaping has killed smoking. It’s fallen off a cliff from about 16 per cent to about 6. It’s dropped the most amongst Māori. It is probably true that a new technology has done more to extend Māori life expectancy than any Government program.

What to make of all this? For years we have fallen over ourselves to atone for our sins, told ourselves we are racist, and introduced a whole new programme of deliberate discrimination into public services. We have done it because leftists told us we had to. If we didn’t, it must be because we wanted Māori to die early, or at least do not care.

A dive into the data shows that is bunk. Life expectancy is increasing, Māori continue to catch up with others, and technology is part of the reason. There being no reason to persist with racist policies in healthcare, they should be dumped, and that is exactly what ACT is doing.