Last week’s wellbeing budget in New Zealand was based on the Livings Standards Framework (LSF), a set of wellbeing measures that include cultural identity, environment, income and consumption, and social connections. But these provide no overall index of the nation’s performance.
The Australian Labor Party’s 2019 election campaign showed a depth and breadth of economic policies rare for an opposition party to present. Its policy agenda was boldly extensive. But in developing these policies over the past five years, it seems Labor’s economic minds overlooked some fundamental principles of behavioural economics.
The Coalition has put forward a scheme to help first home buyers get into homes, under which the government will underwrite a loan of 15 per cent of the value of the home, to be treated as part of their deposit, taking a deposit of 5 per cent up to 20 per cent.
As the federal election approaches, we’re expected to drown in slogans like “lower taxes”, “wage growth”, “franking credit reform” or “negative gearing reforms”. These mostly assume voters are as obsessed as the politicians with economic and financial issues, rather than, say, the kind of Australia they want their grandchildren to live in. There’s no doubt…
