“Whole political parties are now intent on winding the clock back to some previous era, when the solution to every problem could be found in lowering the top tax rate or being ever-tougher on crime or building a road.

And it’s easy to see the appeal. For some people, there’s definitely been far too much change to assimilate; the weather is going haywire, cars run on batteries, LGBTQIA+ people want equal rights, there are pandemics and lockdowns, and much more.”

“Making wellbeing the centre of the proposed local government reforms is a smart idea”, says Kent Duston of Habilis New Zealand.

“It’s pretty much a given that local government needs to change. The recent Future for Local Government review, He Piki Tūranga, He Piki Kotuku, underlines the challenges every Council is going to face in the coming years – a rapidly-changing climate, a turbulent economic environment, evolving demographics, fast technological progress and much more.”

The transition to a wellbeing economy raises several questions, including what we mean by wellbeing and how we can make this approach work in the real world by translating theory into practice.

Our Wellbeing Matters Series attempts to tackle precisely these questions. By distilling the research, best-practice evidence, and current thinking in the field into three short but related white papers, we hope to create a shared language and build a common starting point for audiences interested in the theory and practice of wellbeing economics.