Ten positive trends

Time for a break from the hand wringing promulgated by left-wing academics, politicians and media, and note some of the positive trends that are happening in New Zealand:

1/ Assaults on police

Tasers and training are credited with a double-digit drop in assaults against police.
Recorded offences against police dropped more than 20% between 2009-10 and 2012-13, figures released under the Official Information Act figures reveal.

2/ Deaths from sudden infant death syndrome

The number of infants dying suddenly has dropped but the rate is still too high, officials say.

In 2012, 36 infants died of cot death or sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI). This is down from 55 deaths in 2008.

3/ Recorded crime

Police Minister Anne Tolley has praised frontline Police, with recorded offences down for the third fiscal year in a row, and a massive 17.4 per cent drop in crimes in the past three years.
There were 29,337 fewer recorded offences in the year to June 2013, a fall of 7.4 per cent, representing a 7.9 per cent drop per head of population.

4/ Smoking rate

The recently-issued 2013 census results show a big fall in smoking rates since the last count in 2006. Little by little, great progress has been made...The news stories focused mainly on the overall decline in the numbers of smokers, which had fallen by nearly a quarter, from 598,000 to 463,000. That means that today only about 15 per cent of adults smoke, compared with nearly 21 per cent in 2006.

5/ Teenage birth rate

... the birth rate per 15-19 year-olds has been dropping since 2008.

6/ Abortion rate

The general abortion rate decreased from 17.3 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years in 2011 to 16.1 in 2012. It cemented a five-year downward trend, and the rate was the lowest since 1995, when it was also 16.1 per 1,000, Statistics New Zealand said.

7/ Road deaths

 A record-low Labour Weekend road toll is part of a "downward trend" in deaths on New Zealand roads, police say.

8/ Child mortality rate

New Zealand's infant mortality rate - babies who die before their first birthdays - has fallen steadily from 25 for every 1000 births in the early 1950s to 4.8 for every 1000 in the Unicef data, and to 4.2 in the latest Statistics NZ figures for 2012.

9/ Maori suicide rate

The drop in Maori suicide was largely accounted for by a decrease in male Maori suicide, in particular young male Maori suicide. In 2011/12 there were 94 male Maori suicides, while in 2012/13 there were 72.

10/ Rheumatic fever amongst children

The Rheumatic Fever Prevention Programme began on 1 July 2011, and has been significantly expanded since. The goal of the programme is to reduce rates of new cases of rheumatic fever by two thirds, from a baseline rate of 4.2 cases in 2011 to 1.4 cases per 100,000 people by June 2017. In 2012, the rate of rheumatic fever had reduced to 3.8 cases per 100,000 people