Finance Minister Grant Robertson has welcomed the Treasury’s release of its Living Standards Framework (LSF) Dashboard.

The Dashboard is a tool created by the Treasury, within its broader Living Standards Framework, to help shape policy advice. It contains data measures across 12 areas (such as health, housing, safety, and social connections) that reflect the four key components of the LSF that determine inter-generational wellbeing (natural, human, social, and financial and physical).

“This tool will be used alongside other measures to support the Coalition Government’s Wellbeing Budget that will be released in 2019,” Grant Robertson said.

“Next year’s Budget will be a significant change from previous ones. Our Wellbeing Budget will demonstrate that we are a Government committed to building an economy that is more productive, more sustainable and more inclusive,” Grant Robertson said.

“In doing this, 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.

“The data in the LSF Dashboard shows the current and future wellbeing of New Zealanders broken by ethnicity, age, gender, region, family time and deprivation area over time,” Grant Robertson said.

“I will be able to say more on the five Budget priorities when I release the Budget Policy Statement next week, but I have already signalled mental health wellbeing will be one,” Grant Robertson said.

“The Treasury says the LSF Dashboard version released today 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,” Grant Robertson said.

“The Treasury will continue to update the Dashboard,” Grant Robertson said.

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