News that the health minister went against official advice will likely only amplify the calls for lower screening ages for Māori and Pasifika, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.

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Brown went against official advice

Health minister Simeon Brown rejected official advice to lower the bowel cancer screening age to 56 for Māori and Pacific people and 58 for the general population, RNZ Checkpoint’s Jimmy Ellingham reports. Documents released late last week show officials had recommended a lower age for the two groups, but Brown decided to instead set a universal age of 58, two years earlier than it is currently. The move is the first stage in the government’s plan to eventually align with Australia’s age, which was 50 when Christopher Luxon made the pledge during a pre-election debate in 2023 but has since been lowered to 45.

Projections estimate that the decision will result in 111 more preventable deaths over 25 years compared to the preferred option. However Brown says his plan will prevent 176 deaths over 25 years compared with keeping the age at 60 for the general population and lowering it to 50 for Māori and Pacific people. The government has also allocated funds to raise awareness and participation among Māori and Pasifika, which Brown says will also save lives.

Are Māori and Pasifika at higher risk?

The controversy rests on whether or not Māori and Pasifika should get ‘special treatment’ when it comes to screening. Defending his decision, Brown rightly says all ethnicities have the same risk of developing bowel cancer. However it is also true that some ethnic groups are more affected, at a lower age, than others.

As Rachel Thomas explains in The Post (paywalled), when assessing the statistics, the younger median age of Māori and Pasifika is key. There are fewer people in these groups living past 60, which makes their rate of bowel cancer at younger ages a major concern. Half of bowel cancer cases in Māori and Pacific people occur before the age of 60, compared with a third for other groups, according to oncologists. “Māori don’t live long enough to get the old age increase of bowel cancer. We don’t have a lot of older Māori getting it, because we don’t have a lot of older Māori,” says Dr Rawiri Jansen, former chief medical officer for Te Aka Wahi Ora, the Māori Health Authority.

Focus limited budgets where they’ll do most good, say doctors

When Brown announced his intention to lower the universal age for screening, he likely expected at least a few positive headlines in return. That wasn’t exactly the case. Doctors and cancer experts have lined up to condemn Brown’s decision as shortsighted, damaging and “driven by ideology, not facts”.

Writing in the Sunday Star-Times (paywalled), Dr Ros Pochin and Dr John Mutu-Grigg of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons say the plan to lower the screening age to 50 for Māori and Pasifika “wasn’t about preferencing some Kiwis over others, it was about making an evidence-based decision backed by clinical recommendations”. They’re in favour of lowering the age to 45 or 50 for all, “but we recognise that healthcare budgets are finite. That’s why it’s crucial to focus limited resources where they will make the most impact – on the communities most at risk.”

In pursuit of ‘fairness’ for the US, the president could send his country into recession – and throw New Zealand’s hoped-for recovery into reverse, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.

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A new salvo in Trump’s trade war

President Donald Trump ratcheted up his wide-ranging tariff plan again on Thursday with the implementation of a global 25% tariff on steel and aluminium imports to the US, reports CNN. While the president has imposed tariffs of varying sizes on Canada, Mexico and China over the past six weeks, this is the first time in Trump’s second term that a set of tariffs has been applied to all countries. Within hours, Europe and Canada retaliated with their own new tariffs – to which, Trump warned, the US will respond with yet more tariffs. This morning he threatened a jaw-dropping 200% tariff on European wine and spirits in retaliation for Europe’s planned tariff on American whiskey. The global trade war is well and truly on.

World braces for ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

While this week’s tariffs are a concern for countries with large steel and aluminium industries like Australia, most countries are preoccupied with Trump’s future plans. “I have decided for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them,” he tweeted last month. “No more, no less.”

The reciprocal tariffs, which could begin as early as April 2 and affect the whole world, would impose levies on US imports that match those already in place against American goods. “Very simply, it’s if they charge us, we charge them,” Trump said. As well as existing tariffs, Trump wants to target “other factors he says put US producers at a disadvantage, including [other countries’] subsidies, regulation, value-added taxes (VAT), currency devaluation and lax intellectual property protections”, explains German public news organisation Deutsche Welle.

What will it all mean for New Zealand?

The New Zealand Initiative’s Oliver Hartwich, writing in the NZ Herald (Premium paywalled), says the risks to this country come in two forms. The first is the direct impact on New Zealand exports, primarily agricultural products. Tariffs on these would make them more expensive for US consumers, depressing demand. The second are the indirect effects. The big concern is China, New Zealand’s largest export market. Says Hartwich: “If Chinese growth slows under the weight of American tariffs, demand for New Zealand’s primary exports will inevitably suffer.”

Modelling by AUT professor Niven Winchester estimates Trump’s universal tariffs would reduce New Zealand exports to the US by two-thirds, and reduce New Zealand GDP and national income by nearly 1% – “a significant blow to an already vulnerable economy”, writes Hartwich.

Drilling down on the potential impacts

In Stuff, Esther Taunton looks at some of the ways Trump’s trade war could affect the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. Echoing Hartwich, Taunton says a global slowdown would stunt the hoped-for recovery of the NZ economy, which would have a knock-on effect on the labour market. On the bright side, it could also mean lower home loan rates – especially longer-term rates, “which are driven more by offshore trends than by what the Reserve Bank is up to”.

While cratering agricultural exports would lead to lower domestic prices for NZ wine and meat, such savings “wouldn’t outweigh the total negative economic effects of a global slowdown”, cautions Infometrics’ Gareth Kiernan. Finally, a lower US dollar will make a trip to Disneyland or New York more affordable, though “once again, the only trouble is, if households are under pressure and consumer confidence is low, people will be less likely to travel”, says Kiernan.

Read more:

• Toby Manhire: Trump has reignited the tariff war – why? And what does it mean for New Zealand? (The Spinoff)