Cheap shots aside, Chalmers has work to do to improve his new 'wellbeing' framework
But that’s an easy and somewhat cheap criticism to make.
- But that’s an easy and somewhat cheap criticism to make.
- Notably, the Treasury document reports “little change” in overall life satisfaction based on statistics from 2020, and “stable” psychological distress, based on statistics from 2018.
- It’s as if the newspaper wants to find fault with the document, labelling it “a pitch to progressives” and a “fad”.
We’re late to this party
- But the need to shift away from using the blunt instruments of national income or gross domestic product (GDP) to measure progress has long been recognised.
- Even the inventor of GDP, Simon Kuznets, said a nation’s welfare can “scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income”.
- New Zealand, Wales, the United Kingdom, India and Canada are all ahead of Australia in adopting wellbeing frameworks to shape their budget decisions.
The problem with ‘average’ Australians
- The measures for health, for example, include life expectancy, mental health, prevalence of chronic conditions, and access to health and support services.
- As Paul Krugman put it, if Elon Musk walks into a bar then the average person there becomes a billionaire.
- But not all Australians are sharing in this.
- For example, the national Carer Wellbeing Survey shows that unpaid carers have much lower wellbeing compared to the average Australian.
Regional wellbeing
- Some aspects of wellbeing – such as social connection – are often higher in rural areas.
- For example, the University of Canberra’s Regional Wellbeing Survey, conducted since 2013, has consistently shown that Australians living in outer regional and remote areas report poorer access to many services, including health, mobile phone and internet access.
- But many other indicators don’t have specific data for rural regions, and don’t provide insight into the often large differences in wellbeing of different rural communities.
The importance of up-to-date data
- Yes, the data in some areas is outdated, such as the cost of rent or mortgages and financial security, which come from 2020 – predating the surge in rents and higher interest rates.
- This should include ensuring a sample of the many groups known to be at higher risk of low wellbeing but often under-represented in national data collections.
- But while Measuring What Matters is limited by the scope of the data available, it is a step in the right direction.