From left: Wayne Brown, Rupert Murdoch, Winston Peters, Joe Biden. Montage / Herald
Sigmund Freud never met Wayne Brown.
If he had, the founder of psychoanalysis - and self-declared pacifist - might’ve taken a breath before dropping the pithy, “If youth knew; if age could.”
Anyone who’d “dare to raise age”, says Brown, after the Weekend Herald asked Auckland’s reliably blunt mayor of six months if he’d experienced ageism on the hustings, or beyond, was “risking being flattened, as I am pretty fit.
“My track record and five clear policies is why I had a landslide win … [age] is totally irrelevant. IQ is more relevant. We should know people’s reading age.”
Snappy one-liners from a long-dead master in understanding human behaviour aside, baby boomer Brown has form when it comes to curiosity about his age - he’s 76 - with a hot Newshub mic in October catching the then-candidate fantasising about putting pictures of Herald journalist Simon Wilson on council urinals after “that p***k … dug [my age] out”.
But, as Brown told the Weekend Herald when asked about over-75s in, or seeking, political office, he’s younger than others noted in this feature: 80-year-old US President Joe Biden - who last month announced he wants a second term - Biden’s wannabe 2024 presidential election rival, former US President Donald Trump, 76, and New Zealand First’s 78-year-old leader Winston Peters, also seeking a return to the halls of power.
“And”, Brown adds, “I still surf. Rupert Murdoch [92] is way older and still very dynamic in business and marriage. There are lots of people who were born more recently than me who are physically and mentally way older”, says the mayor, whose enjoyment of social tennis is also well known to Aucklanders.
“I am still 20 years too young for dull activities like golf.”
Some young people are golfing. And some are walking away from high-pressure jobs.
Some old people are surfing. And some are running towards high-pressure jobs.
But age isn’t just a number with no impact on your life.
You can’t vote until you’re 18; nor can you collect a state-funded pension until you’re 65.
When Covid-19 vaccines began arriving on our shores, most Kiwis’ turn for the needle came in relation to their age, while advancing years was no licence for our late monarch Queen Elizabeth to go work-shy before her death aged 96 - nor for her heir, King Charles, crowned two weeks ago aged 74.
And, like it or not, many pass judgment based on age - including whether 76, 78 and 80-year-olds have any business asking voters if they can run our cities and countries.
You might be entitled to your own opinion, but “not your own facts”, wrote politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan, himself an older worker who retired after four terms in the US Senate two years before his 2003 death, aged 76.
One fact, says former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer - Biden’s senior by seven months - is a little thing called democracy.
“If you’re going to accept that leaders should be democratically elected, and not authoritarian appointed … you can’t say that people are disbarred from elective office because ‘they’re too old’.”
He hasn’t thought about whether he could be Prime Minister aged 81, says Palmer, who was 47 when he began a 13-month stint leading the country after David Lange resigned in 1989.
“I can’t give you a considered opinion about that, but I wouldn’t choose to do it at this age because there are other things I want to do.”
Palmer’s many achievements in law and politics are global and range beyond the highest political office in New Zealand to membership of His Majesty’s Privy Council and chairmanship of a panel of inquiry into a 2010 flotilla incident that concluded with a report to the United Nations Secretary-General.
When you don’t want anyone’s vote, it’s easy to humbly sidestep a question about whether, at 81, you can do the job of Chris Hipkins, 44.
But Palmer’s Silent Generation, those born in the two decades before the post-World War II baby boom, needn’t be hushed by their unfortunate label.
“There are many people who live well into their 90s who have a total compos mentis approach to life,” he says. “And [they] understand everything.”
Of course they do.
If age is more than a number, its impact is most undeniably a numbers game.
Ngaire Kerse has a couple to offer - four out of five, which is roughly the number of 80-year-olds who don’t have dementia, based on cognition studies here and abroad, says the GP and gerontologist [an expert in the scientific study of ageing and its effects on medical treatment and well-being].
“Everybody thinks everyone’s got dementia by the time they’re 85. Well, they don’t.”
Kerse is frank about a Herald colleague’s wondering out loud if it was “a bit farcical” that the leader of the free world was expected to be sharp in his 80s.
“Ageist,” says the University of Auckland’s Joyce Cook Chair in Ageing Well.
“Why should you expect them not to be sharp?”
It’s true Ronald Reagan had advanced dementia while in office, Kerse says, something the former US President’s son Ron also confirmed after the 93-year-old’s 2004 death of Alzheimer’s disease complications 15 years after his two White House terms ended.
“That [advanced dementia] was obvious from the way he spoke and the things he did. But there’s no reason to think that a president running for office at age 80 will have dementia. They’re very less likely - especially if they’ve got the abilities to run for election.”
Physically, the body tends to accumulate diseases as it ages - high blood pressure, for example, is much more likely at 75 than 60, and more of the population will have one or two conditions as they reach their 80s.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re not going to be living and doing stuff.”
Her own longitudinal cohort study of the health and wellbeing of Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders living in advanced age, LiLACS NZ, had shown participants - in their 80s when the study began - were independent and living in the community.
“We found out they were just as likely to stay the same, or get better, as they were to decline - both cognitively and functionally, [which] means being able to live independently.
“And that’s not what our society purports. Society’s terrible: ‘Everybody’s going downhill and everything’s terrible’. It’s just not like that. These older people are here to stay.”
And in some cases, to work.
“Lots of people love their work and they want to keep going. And we’re lucky in New Zealand - we don’t have a compulsory retirement age. Other countries do.”
Just as well - employers are desperate for workers right now, Kerse says.
The official unemployment rate for the March quarter remains unchanged at 3.4 per cent, Stats NZ figures released on Wednesday showed.
And beyond 2023, demographics mean a future workforce faces supporting more pensioners as the baby boom bubble - aged 58 to 77 - entered, and stuck around longer, retirement age.
“[In 2016] there were only 83,000 people who were over 85 in New Zealand. It’s going to be 383,000 in another 10 years,” she says, based on Stats NZ population projections.
“I think that’s partly why now we’ve got all these people who are maintaining high public images and very complicated jobs even in very late age. They just weren’t there before … and, with the ageing demographic starting to bite, we need those older people to hang in there.”
The percentage of Kiwis aged 65 and over is expected to rise from a projected 16.9 per cent, or 868,700 this year to 22.6 per cent (1.33 million) in 2043 and 26.2 per cent (1.68m) in 2063, according to Stats NZ.
At the same time the working-age population (18-64) is expected to fall from a projected 61.4 per cent (3.19m) of the total population this year to 59.9 per cent (3.54m) in 2043 and 56.7 per cent (3.7m) in 2063.
We’re already living longer, healthier lives, Kerse says.
So Nikki Haley might want to give her crystal ball a shake, after the US presidential candidate told Fox News a vote for Biden was really one for a future president, Kamala Harris.
“The idea he would make it until 86 is not something that I think is likely,” the 51-year-old Republican said in April.
And yet, longevity modelling firm Club Vita used inputs including affluence, marital status and employment to find both Biden and Trump are likely to live well beyond the end of the next presidency in 2029 - with Biden given a life expectancy of another 11 years, and Trump 14 - although the latter’s longevity could be impacted by his body mass index classifying him as obese.
In New Zealand, babies born today can expect to live between 73.4 years (Māori males) and 84 (females, total population), according to Stats NZ’s complete period life tables, which are based on three years’ worth of deaths around Census years.
Advancements in healthcare certainly play a part, at least for those on the fortunate side of the haves and have-nots divide, Kerse says.
“When people do have ill health, our system is so much better at taking care of them that they can still maintain their contributions for a lot longer.”
Perhaps when we look at older politicians today it’s not the past we see, but the future.
Could that future include 100-year-old MPs?
“Why not?”, Kerse says, laughing as she gives a nod to a former Minister for Racing, who at 78 shows no sign of being put out to pasture.
“Look at Winston Peters. My God, what a man.”
But, as with horse and rider, balance matters.
Young politicians are important - too few and the old ones will “just organise life and society like they always did. Ya gotta make space for new people.”
The median age of Parliament’s 120 MPs is 51, according to the Parliamentary Library, compared to a median of 38.2 years for all New Zealanders.
The Greens’ Chloe Swarbrick is the youngest, at 28, and National’s Ian McKelvie the oldest, at 70.
Life expectancy at birth for women born in the mid-1990s was just under 80, while men born between 1950 and 1952 could expect to live 67.2 years, according to Stats NZ.
McKelvie’s calling it quits at this year’s election, but our oldest-ever MP, Sir Walter Nash, was 86 when he died in 1968 - while still a serving MP (the great-grandfather of recently sacked Labour Cabinet minister Stuart Nash is also our oldest Prime Minister, with his three-year term ending in December 1960 - two months shy of his 79th birthday).
Peters, also eager to serve in his ninth decade, shares something else with Sir Walter: they’re both men.
Our eldest incumbent female MP is the much younger Jacqui Dean, who’s 65.
For all the gains women have made - including three female prime ministers - and despite living on average longer than men, overall they earn less, are less likely to be employed and still face discrimination, for example, in the “high level business world”, Kerse says.
“I want to say men are more ambitious than women, but I think that’s the wrong statement. Men are more enabled [to achieve] … they’ve always had the higher paid and more important jobs than women.
“But I think that will change too. Over the years, we’ll see more older women doing what [the men] are doing.”
For now - some parties are yet to finalise their lists - Peters is the only confirmed main party 2023 candidate who is aged over 75, well beyond the life expectancy at birth of 54 for Māori men born in 1950-1952 (the closest Stats NZ complete period life tables to Peters’ 1945 birth).
He brings experience in a time of need, Peters told the Weekend Herald.
“A few people have asked, ‘Why don’t you enjoy a holiday?’ and the answer is, ‘Well, if you saw the state this country is in you wouldn’t be able to have a good holiday, could you?’
“This country … needs experience, and that’s the offer I’m making.”
But could there be more, even for one of the country’s most forthright political veterans?
Empirical studies have shown the old are better than the young at controlling their emotions, knowing themselves better, making better decisions and having more compassion and empathy towards others, University of California San Diego psychiatry and neuroscience professor Dilip Jeste told US science magazine Nautilus.
In short, a good balance between cognition and emotion - otherwise known as wisdom, Jeste says.
Peters doesn’t choose that word. He prefers experience.
A mix of people in Parliament is good, the former deputy Prime Minister says, but that mix must include those with experience and understanding - most pressingly in 2023 - of business “from home economics all the way to national economics”.
Had he thought about age before deciding on another bid for the Beehive?
“No”, the 44-year political veteran says.
“Because I’m not ageist. I don’t have a bias against experience.”
Get plenty of exercise - it’s good for both body and mind - and eat a healthy diet.
Do balance exercises, such as standing on one leg while brushing your teeth and climbing things while outdoors (within reason). Falls are a big risk in later life.
Stay engaged with the world - do mind exercises such as Wordle or crosswords, read.
Try to be positive about ageing. Your perspective on life, and your mood, matters.
* Source: GP and gerontologist Ngaire Kerse
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.