Treasury tacks a 'wellbeing' framework onto their endless-growth framework

Statement 4 of October 2022 Budget is Measuring What Matters. Declaims Treasury, "traditional" macroeconomic indicators don't measure "community wellbeing". Who knew?

Thus, OECD, and OECD nations (hi, Jacinda) have tacked on trendy "frameworks" for that purpose. Incorporating wellbeing "indicators" across various policy "domains".

Treasury invites your response - by end of January. What should an Australian framework measure? This year, they promise a "stand-alone" Statement.

Statement 4 mimics progressive thinking. But favoured "experts and stakeholders" will mostly determine what gets measured.

Like the Budget generally, Statement's regressive subtext is heedless population growth and chronic environmental denialism.

Ahead of any framework, we need Budget transparency around population/inequality and environment/climate. And any framework should cover population growth.

OECD is the springboard

Wellbeing frameworks aren't totally new. For example, the Human Development Indexand the economic/environment/social Genuine Progress Indicator(GPI) date to the 1990s and earlier. Australian GPI has retreatedsince 1974 - when population was around 14 million.

Looks as if the newer OECD Framework will be Australia's springboard. Statement 4 compares national frameworks to that of the OECD. Rates Australia, against 15 OECD policy "domains" and 32 headline "indicators".

The top-eight OECD domains are: Income & Wealth, Social Connections, Knowledge & Skills, Environmental Quality, Health, Housing, Civic Engagement, and Safety.

Good list. In key domains, sure, Australia ranks highly.

But where's "Population Growth"? Or "Inequality"? One OECD indicator is the "80/20 income share ratio". It's a start.