Arthur Grimes

They go there because they can earn more money.

The simple fact is that you can have all the utopian dreams in the world, but if one country tries to implement them,

people would just leave it, as they do from New Zealand when they go to Australia.

We could absolutely prioritise greater redistribution and all these sorts of things.

But if the productive people decided to leave to go to Australia, we'd all be worse off.

And that's what this report just completely ignores, how people would react.

We won't solve it.

But there are some hopeful sort of things.

I've tried to remind people during the Ardern government, which was the rhetoric was to prioritise wellbeing, was that actually this was a centre-right initiative overseas rather than a centre-left one.

It started with Howard's government in Australia

John Howard's government in Australia.

They had a big well-being agenda.

Then Sarkozy, centre-right president in France, had the huge commission led by Joseph Stiglitz and Sen and Fetusi.

That was under his government.

And then David Cameron, conservative government in the United Kingdom, he campaigned on increasing gross national happiness, GNH, rather than GDP.

I think the centre-right people who think about this have understood that it's important to look at a range of factors that improve people's lives.

And this shouldn't be a centre-left or a centre-right or a left-or-right sort of discussion.

It should be one just where you're saying, what are we trying to achieve?

We're trying to achieve people in society having a better life.

That's what governments are there to do.