Submissions

Age Concern New Zealand welcomed the opportunity to have input on the proposed topic for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development’s 2025 Long-term Insights Briefing: The opportunities and impacts associated with the trend towards residential high-rise housing. 

Overall, we support the proposed topics for 2025. The trend to high-rise housing will have implications for home ownership rates, the availability of rental accommodation and for the wellbeing of communities and neighbourhoods.

Age Concern New Zealand welcomed the opportunity to provide feedback on the proposed topic for the Ministry of Health’s Long-term Insights Briefing. 

Age Concern New Zealand fully supports Unlocking the Potential of Active Ageing as a critical topic to be explored. Active ageing is critical to the health and wellbeing of all New Zealanders and crucial for the sustainability of our health and community sectors.

Overall, we are very supportive of the draft plan aimed at fulfilling Every Life Matters He Tapu te Oranga o ia Tangata Suicide Action Prevention Strategy 2019-2029.

Our comments primarily relate to older people and suicide prevention. Statistics indicate that the 80 to 84 age group had the third highest suicide rate in 2019/2020 with older men being most at-risk. As the number and diversity of older people increases, addressing suicide in this age cohort will be a growing challenge. We can’t afford to wait before acting and ensuring that appropriate services and support are available for older New Zealanders experiencing poor mental wellbeing and contemplating self-harm or suicide. 

We believe that New Zealand is unprepared for an ageing population.

We suggest that that top three priority topics are: home ownership, savings, and access to service.

The top three limitations to live well are: loss of housing, relationship breakdown, separation or divorce, and development of a long term health condition or disability.

The top three focus areas of the Long-Term Insights Briefing are: income support (including NZ Superannuation), social housing, and supporting communities.

Other long-term issues to consider are ethnic disparities, health, and the broader picture. 

We are encouraged by the commitment to accessibility for all publicly funded New Zealand government digital content and services so that they are usable by people with disabilities.

Overall, Age Concern New Zealand supports the proposed changes to Web Standards.

Age Concern New Zealand welcomed the opportunity to submit comments on the Draft Strategy to Prevent and Minimise Gambling Harm 2025/26 to 2027/28.

Overall, we see the Draft Strategy as a positive step forward, our comments and recommendations are primarily to do with older New Zealanders and problem gambling harm.

We acknowledge the important role that driving plays in the lives of many New Zealanders, allowing them to lead independent lives and stay connected with people, services, places & activities. 

We acknowledge the important role that the vocational education system plays in the training of many New Zealanders equipping them to work in trades, healthcare, information technology, food & fibre sectors and community care 

Age Concern New Zealand strongly supports the development and resourcing of services for people with neurological cognitive disorders across the care continuum from home and community care to residential care and palliative care 

We support making it easier to build self-contained high quality small units providing the check and balances in the Building Act and Resource Management Act apply as outlined in the discussion document.

Homeownership has been declining since the 1980s. In 2022, the Retirement Commission estimated that by 2048, 40% of people 65 and over will be renting, equating to up to 600,000 people. This will be a 100% increase from 2018. Therefore, Age Concern New Zealand call for the recognition that renting and home ownership must be viable at all life stage, including older age.

Key comments:

• We strongly oppose allowing landlords to terminate a tenancy with a ‘no-cause eviction’ due to the significant health and social risk to tenants, including older tenants
• Similarly, we believe a landlord should be required to provide a reason if they do not want a fixed-term tenancy to continue as a periodic tenancy
• We do not support reducing notice periods from 63 to 42 days for termination with a reason
• We support the intention to allow more pets in rentals
• We support the additional situation in which a tenant may withdraw from a tenancy due to family violence
• We oppose retroactively applying the legislation to existing tenancies

We strongly support the recommendation to ensure older people are adequately represented in the inter-ministerial human rights mechanisms.