Reports in The Australian suggesting Treasurer Jim Chalmers has shelved his budget wellbeing framework, known as Measuring What Matters, are incorrect.

The framework is alive and well, and making steady (if slow) progress.

Also reported was the Coalition’s intention to scrap the framework if it wins the next election, with its treasury spokesman Angus Taylor quoted as saying the government should instead focus on “lower inflation and lower interest rates”.

The idea that we shouldn’t be thinking about broader measures of progress because we need to concentrate on what’s in front of us impoverishes our view of what’s possible.

The cost of living is certainly paramount. But if all we ever do is address the issue immediately in front of us, we will forever stumble from one crisis to the next.

Actually, if we had had a wellbeing framework in place before the current cost of living crisis, it might have been less likely to develop.........

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