# British Deaths in NZ



## Weta (Feb 11, 2012)

Anyone care to speculate why this might be so: 

_More than 120 Britons died in New Zealand last year, surpassing the number of British deaths in Australia, Canada and India, statistics reveal._

The Herald doesn't divulge anything further, no signs that anyone cares or wonders why, no investigation or suggestions. Pretty sad that they make no attempt to offer any reasoning or excuses for it.

British deaths in NZ higher than many nations - National - NZ Herald News


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## Song_Si (Jun 11, 2010)

I'll speculate . . . age

of the 



> 257,000 British nationals living in New Zealand and 316,976 British residents visited


how many would be in NZ on a transferred pension?

that may also explain why Spain had 1755 deaths (and Portugal 210), France at 778.

From the actual report here I'd suggest similar - but on a smaller scale - for NZ:



> As a proportion, Brits are significantly more likely to die in the Philippines than in any other country - there are significant numbers of elderly British expats who live in the Philippines, which accounts for most of the hospitalisation or death cases – relatively few tourists die or are hospitalised


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## topcat83 (Apr 16, 2009)

Agreed with Song-Si - age.

NZ actually has quite an old population at the moment, one reason being because of it's previously generous senior citizen's pension and the number of parents who have come here to join other family members.

Unfortunately with an older population, this means that (like the UK) the cost of the pension to the country and the age of retirement now needs discussing.


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## Dumbo (Feb 24, 2009)

Discussing the retirement age here may a bit off the the original thread but if I may say something on the subject. Don't raise the retirement age. People who have been working all there life should be able to retire at an age when they can enjoy what years they have left. NZ has a huge unemployment for the size of it's population. Get the unemployed working so they can pay the tax for there retirement. Don't penalize the elderly.


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## carosapien (Oct 16, 2011)

Weta said:


> Anyone care to speculate why this might be so:
> 
> _More than 120 Britons died in New Zealand last year, surpassing the number of British deaths in Australia, Canada and India, statistics reveal._
> 
> ...


 I'm surprised that it's more than Australia and Canada, I thought there'd be more British people there than in New Zealand.

I don't think it's down to age at all, probably something to do with the number of people taking part in extreme sports and driving on the dodgy roads. How many of those deaths have we heard of recently? 

I'd like to see when these deaths peak, if it's in the summer tourism season then I suspect that age has little to do with it.


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## Song_Si (Jun 11, 2010)

^ and the France, Spain etc ones - extreme sports? almost 3000 of them?

Cyprus had double (237) the deaths on approx 20% the residents (59,000 v 257,000). 
Now that's extreme!

India (107 deaths) is far worse percentage-wise with about 14% the resident British (36,000 v 257,000)

Without accurate age breakdowns and causes . . . who can say?


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## anski (Aug 17, 2008)

Song_Si said:


> ^ and the France, Spain etc ones - extreme sports? almost 3000 of them?
> 
> Cyprus had double (237) the deaths on approx 20% the residents (59,000 v 257,000).
> Now that's extreme!
> ...


When you get to my age even walking down stairs is an extreme sport 

I fell down a step trying to take a photo of a passing boat & damaged my knee 

I can vouch that Cyprus has terrible roads & pavements but I would say most of the deaths were age or illness related


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## Song_Si (Jun 11, 2010)

a problem with stats . . . just who is being measured/what is counted?

story today about a man who moved to NZ as a two-year old (not my himself!) in 1981 and has never taken steps towards citizenship. So for 31 years he has been counted as British - and if he'd died last year he'd have been counted in these figures as a 'Briton traveling abroad'. Surely not the only one?

In an odd twist to the story, he's now ineligible to apply as has been out of NZ too long within the last 5 years to qualify, and he spent much of that time promoting NZ music overseas (applicants had to have spent 240 days in New Zealand for each of the past five years).


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## topcat83 (Apr 16, 2009)

Song_Si said:


> a problem with stats . . . just who is being measured/what is counted?
> 
> story today about a man who moved to NZ as a two-year old (not my himself!) in 1981 and has never taken steps towards citizenship. So for 31 years he has been counted as British - and if he'd died last year he'd have been counted in these figures as a 'Briton traveling abroad'. Surely not the only one?
> 
> In an odd twist to the story, he's now ineligible to apply as has been out of NZ too long within the last 5 years to qualify, and he spent much of that time promoting NZ music overseas (applicants had to have spent 240 days in New Zealand for each of the past five years).


One of the reasons we have citizenship now, and our son applies next month. NZ is our home, and we have permanent residency, and as far as I am concerned we are now New Zealanders.

But as my son is a scuba diving instructor it would be great if he had the option to work aboard for a year or two without running the risk of losing the chance to become a citizen.


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## carosapien (Oct 16, 2011)

But he wouldn't lose it would he? all that would happen is that the clock would start ticking again when/if he gets back. So long as he's got his post 2 year IRRV he'll be ok, and he's probably already got that.


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## carosapien (Oct 16, 2011)

Song_Si said:


> ^ and the France, Spain etc ones - extreme sports? almost 3000 of them?
> 
> Cyprus had double (237) the deaths on approx 20% the residents (59,000 v 257,000).
> Now that's extreme!
> ...


But these were deaths where consular assistance was required, are expat resident abroad likely to request consular assistance for a death in New Zealand? You have to look at the total number of Brits present in the country, not just the residents but visitors too.

I found the original Foreign and Commonwealth document http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/travel-living-abroad/21151574/british-behaviour-abroad-2012 which looks at British behaviour abroad.

Spain had 13.6 million British visitors in the past year. Add the residents onto that and the number goes up to a total of 14.408 million - of which 1,755 people died. That's a 0.012% death rate.

Compare that to New Zealand which had 316,000 visitors making up a total of 573,000 people present. It had 127 deaths, that's 0.022% which is a lot higher than Spain's 0.012%.

If you can't explain that big difference away through road traffic accidents and sporting activities (and I'm including helicopter accidents, skiing, drowning, horse riding etc in sport) perhaps the fatality rate in Spain is lower because it has a better medical care ? 

I also looked at Australia which has about 4 times the number of British residents than New Zealand ( 1.193 million vs. 257,000) yet their number of deaths was only 94 compared to New Zealand's 127.

The overall death rate for the total number of Brits in Australia (1,807 million) was 0.0053%, way below NZ's 0.022%

It's an interesting report. I'd like to know why the death rates are so much higher in New Zealand. I believe the clue is in the title of the document - the behaviour of British people abroad. What is it that makes New Zealand more risky?


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## Song_Si (Jun 11, 2010)

> But these were deaths where consular assistance was required


well that about ruins any theories doesn't it? so these are '_some stats_' on '_some of the people_' _'sometimes, maybe_'

! maybe we can agree these figures are a crock? 

No doubting people die on the roads, extreme sports etc, but these incidents are not nationality-specific, there's no conspiracy to kill off tourists/immigrants (!)

So many unknowns, guesses . . . one factor is that NZ has not held a census since 2006 so a lot of 'trend' extrapolations will have been used.



> Where accurate official data does exist but where trends cannot be calculated, an *estimate* has been calculated using the growth rate in the number of UK state pensioners in that country
> Where official data is absent, inaccurate or out of date and where UK state pensions data is too small or inappropriate, an *estimate* of the number of British passports issued during the last 10 years has been used
> Where the passports issuing rates are suspected to be anomalous or where absent, local consular *estimates* have been used instead.
> Also *estimated* were the number of British expatriates who live overseas for part of the year.
> All data depends on whether it was available to the researchers compiling the figures.


Mid 90s my job carried the lovely title of 'Labour Market Analyst' when it came to issuing media releases; 'spin' you might say, regarding employment and unemployment to suit the government of the day's objectives. Stats and lies! nothing has changed, any such survey/report can be read in a way that suits the readers.

Note same report records precisely 50,000 Brits resident in Thailand' - reality is no Brit (or USA, NZ, Aust etc) is eligible for either residency or citizenship. Marry, have a family etc and the best you can do is a one-year visa with compulsory 90-day report-in to Immigration. 
Never a resident, always a visitor; that figure too is a wild estimate imo.


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## Song_Si (Jun 11, 2010)

> Spain had 13.6 million British visitors in the past year. Add the residents onto that and the number goes up to a total of 14.408 million - of which 1,755 people died. That's a 0.012% death rate.


Completely invalid comparison - you are including visitors - perhaps there for one day on a stopover, or one week - to an annualised death rate total. Of course you get a miniscule percentage as a result


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## carosapien (Oct 16, 2011)

I don't agree that it's an invalid comparison. The F&CO figures include both residents and visitors, both groups are likely to request consular assistance but it is more likely that visitors would do this. A death is a death, regardless of whether the person is visiting or in residence, they're still British and abroad the F&Co doesn't discriminate.

The report also states that



> * These figures are based on visitor numbers provided by individual country authorities


I think that each country is best placed to know how many visitors it has from other countries and that accurate records are made of this.



> ** Source: IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) 2010 Figure based on Brits living in country for a year or longer, with the exception of Australia which is provided by Australian Bureau of Statistics and Germany which is based on Federal Government statistics, including military and their dependents


I anything the figures for residents may be underestimated because they are 2 years old and because they are based on residents living in the country for a year or longer.

Regardless of that the fact remains that New Zealand still has a higher death rate among countries that are popular with Brits and the reason for that does not seem to be related to age.


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