Jim Chalmers will look throughout the ditch for inspiration as he prepares to ship Australia’s first nationwide scorecard on wellbeing.
Outlining his plans in a speech in Auckland, the Treasurer declared New Zealand was “way ahead” of Australia in measuring societal progress past the remit of conventional financial indicators.
Dr Chalmers has been looking for to stir nationwide debate about how Australia measures prosperity and financial success since he first mooted the thought of delivering a “wellbeing budget” in October final yr.
He plans to ship Australia’s first “Measuring What Matters Statement” later this yr after consulting with business, unions and neighborhood teams in addition to different governments and organisations such because the IMF.
The New Zealand Labour authorities launched its first “wellbeing budget” in 2019 beneath the management of then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern.
In his speech to the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and Auckland Business Chamber on Friday, Dr Chalmers mentioned the New Zealand mannequin was a “great framework to learn from”.
He mentioned the Kiwis had give you a “better way” to seize a extra full image of how they had been monitoring as a rustic and a society.
Dr Chalmers mentioned he knew individuals in Australia and New Zealand had been doing it powerful with each international locations grappling with slowing economies amid very excessive inflation.
He careworn that he and his Kiwi counterpart, Grant Robertson, who additionally belongs to a centre-left political celebration, recognised that conventional financial metrics had been “critical”.
“But other things are important too,” Dr Chalmers mentioned.
“The state of our environment; our health; the way that people do or do not feel connected to their communities.
“These things matter – all go to that core aspiration of enabling our people to live with meaning and with purpose.”
Dr Chalmers mentioned measuring progress in these areas would contribute to the constructing of a “stronger, fairer and more resilient economy and society”.
“Of course, we won’t see the fruits of that immediately. It’ll take time to collect the data, to analyse, and respond,” he mentioned.
“But what ‘Measuring What Matters’ is about … is putting the right foundations in place so that we can make progress.”
Dr Chalmers gave the handle on the ultimate day of his three-day tour of New Zealand as the 2 international locations mark 40 years of the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, referred to as the CER.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
