Despite what you’ve read, Jim Chalmers’s wellbeing framework hasn’t been shelved – if anything, it’s been strengthened
- Written by Warwick Smith, Honorary Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Reports in The Australian[1] suggesting Treasurer Jim Chalmers has shelved his budget wellbeing framework, known as Measuring What Matters[2], are incorrect.
The framework is alive and well, and making steady (if slow) progress.
Also reported was the Coalition’s intention to scrap the framework if it wins the next election, with its treasury spokesman Angus Taylor quoted as saying the government should instead focus on “lower inflation and lower interest rates”.
The idea that we shouldn’t be thinking about broader measures of progress because we need to concentrate on what’s in front of us impoverishes our view of what’s possible.
It’s important to measure what matters
The cost of living is certainly paramount. But if all we ever do is address the issue immediately in front of us, we will forever stumble from one crisis to the next.
Actually, if we had had a wellbeing framework in place before the current cost of living crisis, it might have been less likely to develop.
Most of us would agree that the things in the government’s Measuring What Matters framework matter, such as security, prosperity and cohesiveness.
But some of the information in last year’s statement was dated[3], some dating back to the years before COVID.
