Commentary on Te Tai Waiora: Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand

29 August 2023: In 2022, the Treasury produced a report on the state of New Zealand's well-being called Te Tai Waiora: Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand. We looked at this report, as well as well-being reports from other countries, to provide observations that could help the Treasury’s future well-being reports.

Auditor-General's overview

"New Zealand's well-being is also an opportunity to build closer connections with New Zealanders, develop a wider understanding of what matters to New Zealanders, counter misinformation, demonstrate public accountability, and strengthen trust and confidence in the public sector. In my view, the Treasury has the opportunity to realise this potential."

Summary of our report

Read our short summary of why we did this commentary, what we found, and what needs to happen next.

Photo acknowledgement: iStock, dangphoto2517.

What's in this commentary?

Part 1 is an introduction. We discuss what the well-being of a nation means, outline the legislative requirements for the Treasury to prepare a well-being report, explain why we are doing this commentary, scope and limitations of this commentary, and outline what we cover in the rest of this report.

In Part 2, we look at some of the different kinds of well-being reports in New Zealand and internationally, and summarise the common themes in their preparation, content, and form.

In Part 3, we outline the perspectives on well-being that the Treasury uses, set out what we consider the objectives of Te Tai Waiora to be, discuss its place as a stewardship report, and summarise the process of preparing Te Tai Waiora and what it says.

In Part 4, we comment on how well the Treasury has realised the objectives for Te Tai Waiora.

In the Appendix, we briefly describe the background papers that the Treasury prepared to support Te Tai Waiora.