Age Concern National A.G.M

Friday 16 April 2004

Good evening. Welcome to Christchurch, a city of many titles and names. Once it was the City that Shines. It is also known as the world's best Garden City. To the tourists it is part of the Fresh each Day promotion, and every winter we also get reminded it can be the city that has smog at times.

One of our other less well known identities is that within a few years Christchurch is tipped to have the oldest population of any city in New Zealand.

Like much of New Zealand and the western world, we are having to come to grips with the reality that even we baby

boomers are, much to our surprise, getting older. So, in Christchurch we have a very strong vested interest in getting the problems and the plus points of ageing right.

Many of you will be aware that my Deputy Mayor, Lesley Keast, has spent increasing amounts of her time on age-related issues in recent years. Of course I cannot get too specific about Lesley's age. Let's just say when she retires from Council life this year she will not have too much trouble qualifying for her pension.

But like many of what I have come to call the "new" old she will be drawing a pension while pursuing her passion. The

passion of the moment is age-related issues. For other active, older people the interests will be many and varied.

It seems to me that we are up against at least two sets of problems in dealing with age and its changing nature. One, the traditional problems of mobility, health care, housing etc, for the old. The other is the huge change in the nature of age itself.

Old no longer automatically means infirm or feeble of either mind or body. Increasing numbers of older people are enjoying great health, of both mind and body. It is perhaps this group that society is most out of touch with.

It seems to me that part of the changes we need to make as a traditionally caring society is in how we care. That caring is also going to need to include a vastly increased capacity to listen. Society, if you will, is going to have to turn up its hearing aid to hear what the new old are telling us..

I was greatly struck by the view of visiting world leader on age issues, Professor Tom Kirkwood. He is the head of gerontology at the University of Newcastle. He was quoted yesterday as believing our increasing life spans are a bigger global issue than terrorism.

Professor Kirkwood also made the point that while terrorism inspires fear, the great leaps forward in lifespan should be the

subject for celebration. We are at the dawn of a new era for age.

Just how we navigate toward a realistic new view of age in such a youth-obsessed culture remains to be seen. I suspect that like many other trends, the increasing number of wallets and purses under the control of the older population will eventually balance that out. Markets are quite good at going where the money is.

Increasingly, the older population will not just have major political muscle, they will also have increased economic muscle. Both will come in useful in the future.