About Measuring What Matters

The Measuring What Matters wellbeing framework was established by the Australian Government in 2023. 

The framework has five themes:

• Healthy: A society in which people feel well and are in good physical and mental health, can access services when they need, and have the information they require to take action to improve their health.
• Secure: A society where people live peacefully, feel safe, have financial security and access to housing.
• Sustainable: A society that sustainably uses natural and financial resources, protects and repairs the environment and builds resilience to combat challenges.
• Cohesive: A society that supports connections with family, friends and the community, values diversity, and promotes belonging and culture.
• Prosperous: A society that has a dynamic, strong economy, invests in people’s skills and education, and provides broad opportunities for employment and well-paid, secure jobs.

Inclusion, equity and fairness are cross-cutting dimensions of the framework.

The themes are supported by 12 dimensions that describe aspects of the wellbeing themes and 50 key indicators, to monitor and track progress, which will be updated over time.

The first dashboard, published by Treasury in 2023, defines the metrics for each of the key indicators. In 2024, responsibility for updating the data in the dashboard moved to the ABS. The ABS has retained the reporting model established by Treasury.

The 2024 update:

• retains the themes and dimensions established by Treasury
• retains Treasury's indicator names and descriptions (Why this matters text) with minor changes included, where necessary
• retains the metrics and data sources selected by Treasury with limited changes included, where necessary
• where possible, provides supplementary data for context in circumstances where headline sources have no recent update.

Changes made in 2024 are described in detail below.

Updates to 'Why this matters' text in 2024

'Why this matters' text is authored by Treasury to explain the relevance of an indicator in the context of the relevant theme and dimension of the framework. Minor updates have been applied to 12 indicators. These changes have been made to:

• apply ABS web content guidelines, including ease of reading
• meet ABS's commitment to apply Mindframe principles and guidelines
• support interpretation of the data.

Updates to indicator names in 2024

Indicator names are authored by Treasury. In 2024, two indicator names were changed:

• 'First Nations languages spoken' is now 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages spoken' to meet ABS web content guidelines
• 'Resource use and waste generation' is now 'Circular economy' to support a broader set of metrics.

Updates to metrics in 2024

Measuring What Matters metrics and data sources are selected and described by Treasury. 

In 2024, two metric names were changed:

• 'Proportion of reduction in Australia's net greenhouse gas emissions' is now 'Net greenhouse gas emissions'. This reflects the intent of the indicator and the way the data was presented on the original Treasury dashboard. 
• 'Proportion of federal Australian parliamentarians who are women' is now 'Representation in federal Australian parliament'. This reflects the intent of the indicator and the way the data was presented on the original Treasury dashboard. 

In 2024, the data sources for three metrics were changed:

• 'All levels of government gross debt as a share of GDP' is now 'All Australia general government sector net debt (L2) as a proportion of GDP'. This name change describes the new data source for the metric. The 2024 metric presents L2 debt as a proportion of GDP. L2 is comparable to government reporting of net debt under the Uniform Presentation Framework governing the presentation of financial information in budget papers for the Commonwealth and each of the state and territory jurisdictions. 
• In the original dashboard, average net worth per household was reported using data sourced from Australian National Accounts: Distribution of Household Income, Consumption and Wealth. To improve the timeliness of this measure, it is now reported using June quarter estimates of household sector net worth sourced from National accounts: finance and wealth (Table 35) and household count projections for each year sourced from Household and family projections (Series II).
• The hours-based underutilisation rate in the original dashboard was from the ABS Labour Account. From 2024 onwards, this has been taken directly from Labour Force statistics (which is the source for the Labour Account measure).

In 2024, three new metrics were introduced into the Circular economy indicator:

• Circularity rate, which measures the overall percentage of secondary materials that comprise the total mass of materials used in a single year in an economy. 
• Material footprint per capita, which measures the amount of materials required for final demand (household consumption, government consumption and capital investment), independently of whether the materials are source from within Australia or overseas.
• Material productivity, using the domestic material consumption method, which measures the amount of materials that are managed in the economy calculated as domestic extraction plus imports minus exports.

New data sources included in 2024

The 2024 Measuring What Matters dashboard updates headline metrics with available data. Where possible, supplementary data has been sourced to provide contemporary context to headline sources that have no recent update. 

In the 2024 update, supplementary data was included from a range of sources already included in Measuring What Matters as headline sources. This provided greater use of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey and the Scanlon Institute's Mapping Social Cohesion survey.

In addition to these two sources and ABS data, three new non-ABS data sources were included as supplementary or contextual information:

• AIHW’s Specialist Homelessness Services client data
• OECD’s Drivers of Trust Survey 
• Data from the Mayi Kuwayu Study published in the Lancet.

In each case, the data source was assessed against the ABS Data Quality Framework to ensure its fitness-for-purpose.