Australia’s new ‘wellbeing’ dashboard like Bhutan’s happiness index: What is it
Australia launched a “national wellbeing” dashboard which includes new indicators to measure progress such as health, education and environment. The aim of the dashboard is to better the balance between social and economic objectives, officials said as the indictors across five categories will track- healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive, and prosperous. This can be viewed on an online dashboard and will be updated annually to complement economic indicators such as gross domestic product, inflation and employment.
Australia National Wellbeing Dashboard: The Australian flag is seen. (Reuters)
The dashboard is similar to Bhutan’s famous “gross national happiness” index which is considered more important than the GDP by the country.
“I think one of the frustrations that we have had for some time really is people have only thought that our social objectives and our economic objectives must be in conflict,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said, adding, “I think that they can be in concert and that is what the national wellbeing framework is all about.”
What an Australian government report said?
In a report titled “Measuring What Matters” issued to accompany the dashboard, the government said that Australia had made progress on life expectancy, reducing resource use, diversity, incomes and employment but measures of chronic health conditions, national security, biodiversity and fiscal sustainability had all been declined.
Almost 13 per cent reported mental health problems and half the population has one or more chronic health conditions, the report noted. Measures of household financial stress and access to housing have also deteriorated as cost of living has risen in the country.
Twenty of the indicators had improved over the past few decades while seven were stable and 12 had deteriorated.
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