Finance Minister says the Treasury's new set of wellbeing indicators is a 'significant step forward'

Minister of Finance Grant Robertson: "This is a significant shift in gear for the Treasury". Photo / Brett Phibbs

A new first of its kind set of wide-ranging wellbeing indicators has been released by the Treasury and has been welcomed by the Government.

The Treasury today unveiled its LSF Dashboard – a wide-ranging set of data which takes a deep dive into the overall wellbeing of New Zealanders.

It shows the current and future wellbeing of Kiwis broken down by ethnicity, age, gender, region, family type and area deprivation over time.

It contains data measures across 12 areas – including health, housing and safety. The data was sourced from a range of different places, such as Stats NZ and a range of academics and economists.

"This is a significant shift in gear for the Treasury. To move to have a dashboard of indicators where we can see New Zealanders' wellbeing, that is a significant step forward," Finance Minister Grant Robertson said.

It also compares the wellbeing of Kiwis with people in other OECD countries.

For example, the data compares the percentage of adults who report being in good, or very good health, with the OECD average. The most recent data shows New Zealand is well above the average in this measure.

The Treasury's Chief Economic Adviser Tim Ng said a lot of "intensive work" has gone into creating the dashboard.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson said it would be used alongside other measures to support the Coalition Government's Wellbeing Budget that will be released in 2019.

Next year's budget would be the first to take into account a number of wellbeing indicators and not just use GDP growth as a measure of economic success.

"We are making sure that we don't just look at New Zealand's financial health, but also at the wellbeing of our people, the health of our environment, and the strength of our communities," Grant Robertson said.

He added that the LSF Dashboard is the first of an evolving tool, so understandably there are still some gaps and issues to address, in particular on child wellbeing, cultural wellbeing and capturing a Te Ao Maori view.

Ng said the Dashboard will keep developing over time.

"We will continue to update and refine the indicators based on the most relevant and robust data available, and reflect them in our broader economic, financial, and policy advice to governments."