The Funeral for Wellbeing - Nicola Willis Buries Humanity in a Shallow GDP Grave
An object lesson in tin-eared callousness
It takes a special kind of politician to look at a nation buckling under housing misery, spiralling mental health crises and intergenerational poverty and decide the real problem is that Treasury has been wasting time thinking about people. Enter Nicola Willis, our finance minister and part-time undertaker of compassion, who last week dragged wellbeing provisions from the Public Finance Act to the legislative gallows and pulled the lever with a smile.
Six years ago, New Zealand made international headlines with its “Wellbeing Budget.” The idea, radical in its simplicity, was that government spending should be measured not only in GDP ticks and Treasury surpluses, but in the things that actually keep people alive and sane: secure housing, decent health, social connection, not wanting to drive your car into a wall at the thought of another day. Those “non-monetary” factors, as bureaucrats so tenderly describe them, are now back where the government likes them - irrelevant.
The coalition’s message is clear: wellbeing is sentimental fluff, a cotton-candy distraction. Poverty, loneliness, untreated trauma? Inconvenient side effects of a good quarterly report. Forget the fact that suicide is still the leading cause of death for young people, or that mould-ridden rentals give kids asthma before they’re five. Nicola assures us that Budgets were always about wellbeing. After all, nothing says “human flourishing” like queuing at Work and Income to be told your application for food assistance will take three weeks.
The two requirements being repealed are hardly onerous. Treasury had to publish a wellbeing report every four years and governments had to at least pretend - on paper, that their Budgets were guided by wellbeing goals. Not anymore. Now, Treasury can get back to the real business of churning out balance sheets that make the suffering of ordinary New Zealanders a tidy line item under “externalities.”
Let’s be honest. This is less about efficiency and more about ideology. A government that treats every social problem as a moral failing doesn’t want metrics that prove otherwise. If your worldview is that the poor just need to try harder, the last thing you want is an official report showing that half the country can’t afford dental care.
So, the wellbeing corpse is dumped unceremoniously into the fiscal ditch, replaced by “more transparency” about fiscal risks. Translation - a glossy new chapter about how expensive it might be to stop raping children in state care. Because nothing demonstrates humanity like costing out the trauma of survivors before deciding if they’re worth the money.
This is not just callous. It’s misanthropy dressed in a power suit. It is the deliberate act of a government that sees people as ledger entries, grief as inefficiency and social ruin as background noise to the holy hymn of GDP.
We should not be polite about this. A country that cannot even commit to measuring the wellbeing of its citizens has already declared the game - your value is your productivity, your worth is your tax return and your suffering is an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of economic orthodoxy.
Government Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Coalition Government Reaffirms Commitment to People By Removing Annoying Distractions Like People
The Coalition Government is proud to announce the Public Finance (Wellbeing Removal and Fiscal Clarity) Amendment Bill, a bold step toward modernising our nation’s priorities.
For too long, Treasury has been side-tracked by minor inconveniences such as child poverty, housing quality and suicide rates. These “soft factors” dilute the clarity of fiscal decision-making and confuse the public into thinking that governments should care about anything other than spreadsheets.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis today reaffirmed -
“We will always care deeply about wellbeing - by no longer measuring it, referring to it, or acknowledging it in any form. Treasury must focus on its true role - ensuring that every New Zealander is safely represented as a neat decimal in our GDP growth charts.”
Key benefits of this reform include -
Increased Efficiency - By no longer producing wellbeing reports, Treasury will save thousands of hours that can be better spent forecasting recessions.
Enhanced Transparency - By monetising social collapse as “fiscal risks,” New Zealanders will finally know exactly how much compassion would have cost, had we chosen to exercise it.
Modern Alignment - Global investors prefer jurisdictions where humans do not clutter policy design.
The Government looks forward to continued partnership with New Zealanders as long as they remain financially solvent.
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