Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that in July 2020, the UN Sustainable Development Goals index ranked Australia third globally for our management of the COVID-19 crisis, but 37th for our long-term direction;

(2) acknowledges that prior to 2020, Australia experienced 28 years of economic growth, where annual GDP growth peaked at 5 per cent and troughed at 2 per cent—but notwithstanding that GDP growth, inequality has increased, wages have stagnated, more people on low and precarious incomes are being left behind and the natural environment is in a fragile state;

(3) recognises that COVID-19 has illustrated that it's impossible to separate the wellbeing of our people from the health of our economy, society and environment; and

(4) calls on the Government to consider developing a national account of wellbeing in order to judge the success of recovery from the global pandemic, not just by how swiftly the economy rebounds, but also by whether our country is meeting measures of what Australians value as contributing to a 'good society'.

Economic prosperity fairly shared must play a central role in our national agenda, but, in order for Australia and Australians to truly thrive, it should be embedded in a larger story of wellbeing, of people, of communities and of the places we live and love. My argument is that, if we take the approach of national wellbeing and national economic growth being indivisible and if we measure and report on both at the same time, Australia can be a country that not only is excellent in a crisis but also one that takes full advantage of prosperity in all of its dimensions. Right now we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to, as economist Kate Raworth has put it, 'change the goal'.

Previous generations have done it. Between 1901 and the first World War, Australia built a thriving democracy based on the living wage, supplemented by an aged pension, an interventionist state and a near-universal franchise that included women but, sadly, not First Nations people. After World War II, Australian governments committed to full employment, mass migration, a huge expansion of housing and, later, the broadening of tertiary education. From the eighties, sweeping reforms deregulated and opened the economy; expanded the social wage with Medicare, family support and superannuation; and better protected the environment. These kinds of profound national changes all followed crises which impacted health, wealth and wellbeing, and in all instances political leaders and leaders from civil society, business and unions addressed immediate challenges but also took one step back to forge a simple, compelling narrative for reform that the population could rally behind and that would endure. Now, more than 40 years since the last period of major change, we can decide to view the health, social and economic damage wrought by COVID-19 as also providing the conditions for a re-imagining and renewal of the country we love.

Before the events of summer 2019, 2020 and now, sadly, 2021, we were all aware that Australia is a country of people who care not just about their physical and mental health but also that of their families and friends. They cherish connection to community, are concerned about the health of the natural environment and the planet their children will inherit, and want to live in a society that is broadly equal and fair. But COVID-19 and devastating bushfires demonstrated to all of us how fragile what we value the most really is. Right now, we have an opportunity to decide how we as a nation can secure what we value. We can judge not only the economic sense of our recovery from the global pandemic; we can also decide to set our collective trajectory towards a future where prosperity is harnessed to deliver a uniquely Australian concept of national wellbeing, and we can decide to measure our success not just by how swiftly the economy rebounds but also by whether our country is meeting identified measures of what we value as necessary for a good society.

Measuring wellbeing is neither a new nor a radical suggestion. Simon Kuznets devised a measure of national income after the Great Depression and he noted:

The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income ...

Infamously, the American Senator Kennedy described GDP as measuring everything except that which we hold dear. Once, Australia led the world in this area. The ABS was the first national statistical organisation to measure wellbeing. In 2004, the Australian Treasury developed a wellbeing framework, which was sadly discarded by this government, and in 2013 the Australian National Sustainability Council produced measures of sustainable wellbeing, which was work also discontinued by this government. And we now have a Treasurer who has mocked the suggestion of a wellbeing budget, which ignores both the history of GDP development and the modern international trends.

Various international jurisdictions have considered what a national account of wellbeing might look like—for example, France's Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission, the OECD High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the New Zealand wellbeing budget, and the work undertaken in Scotland, Iceland and here in the ACT. We should be developing an Australian approach. I suggest a quadruple-bottom-line approach to measuring national wellbeing. Economy, society, environment and democracy could provide the foundations, and the specific line items under each of those measures could reflect a modern Australian description of what is required for or what constitutes a good society. We know we have plenty to build on with our pioneering work in the past and the strength within our communities and institutions. We can emerge from this current crisis with national policy settings which ensure that we grow not only wealthy but also wise and well, working towards the future we want together. It won't happen without a government committed to introducing a framework within which to do it, and I commend a wellbeing budget as a central part of such a framework.

See this speech in context