# Public Policy and Wellbeing in New Zealand

Adrien Rodd

► To cite this version:

Adrien Rodd. Public Policy and Wellbeing in New Zealand. Interventions Economiques: Papers in Political Economy, 2019, 62, 10.4000/interventionseconomiques.6225. hal-04145055

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# Wellbeing: Political Discourse and Policy in the Anglosphere.
## Introduction

*Le bien-être : discours politique et politiques publiques dans le monde anglophone. Introduction*

Louise Dalingwater, Iside Costantini and Nathalie Champroux

1 In recent years, policymakers have shown renewed interest in the notion of wellbeing, or happiness, which are often interchangeable terms in discourse. However, subjective wellbeing or happiness dates back to ancient times. For Aristotle (384-322BC), happiness could take two forms: eudaimonic happiness, the ultimate goal of one's existence which could be reached by following a virtuous path and undertaking meaningful activities, and hedonistic happiness, linked to the pursuit of personal satisfaction and emotional comfort.

2 Wellbeing as we understand it today mostly stems from Western sources. ‘The pursuit of happiness’ was in fact included as a ‘human unalienable right’ among others on the American Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, whilst that same year British philosopher Jeremy Bentham recommended happiness as a social measure to promote ‘utility’ or the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’ (Bentham, 1776: 142). Political and economic changes such as the independence of the United States of America (USA), the French Revolution and industrialisation in 19th century England brought about unprecedented and large scale democratisation which had a deep impact on the lives of citizens. The increase in wealth and spread of democracy led to an improvement in the quality of life in general, even if it failed to prevent wars and eradicate poverty from all spheres of society. As the political structure of European countries went through the process of ‘state and nation building, mass democratization and the rise of different types of welfare systems’ (Glatzer and Kohl, 2017), the material wellbeing and happiness of society became a concern for public institutions for present and future generations.

3 Although the term ‘wellbeing’ has existed for centuries¹, it was more widely adopted by economists and policymakers in the second half of the 20th century², probably encouraged
by its use in psychology in the late 1960s. Since then, the concept has been reviewed and further developed as a means to focus more on subjective wellbeing and social progress, rather than economic growth. But there is still no commonly agreed definition of wellbeing. Some consider wellbeing to be equivalent to happiness (Layard, 2005). Others relate the notion to life satisfaction, quality of life and sustainability (OECD, 2014; Scott, 2012). The recent focus on subjective wellbeing is, in the field of economics, close to John Stuart Mill's 'deliberative utilitarianism': how people think and feel about their lives. Indeed, Mill rejected hedonism and defended human happiness that consisted in the exercise of one's rational capacities (Mill, 1861). While the term remains open to interpretation, there does seem to be a fair amount of consensus on the similarities between happiness and subjective wellbeing, which are mostly interchangeable. Subjective wellbeing or happiness is said to incorporate three main components: first, life satisfaction which can be gauged by asking people how happy they are overall with their life; second, positive emotions and an absence or low level of negative emotions; third, such notions are also completed by psychological wellbeing and eudaimonic wellbeing (Diener, 2000; Argyle, 2001).

# 1. Measuring Wellbeing for Policy

4

Yet attempts at expressing the nature of wellbeing have mainly focused on the implementation of measures and monitoring rather than definitions. For instance, since 2003 Eurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions) has undertaken four surveys on the quality of life in Europe. Many recent measuring initiatives were also taken after the publication of the 2009 study on alternatives to measuring growth, commissioned by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and led by the economists Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz (Stiglitz et al., 2009). The Council of Europe included the concept of wellbeing for all its members as part of a new strategy for social cohesion, which was approved by the Committee of Ministers in 2010. In 2011, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution to encourage member countries to consider happiness and wellbeing in their measurement of social and economic development with a view to guiding public policy. This non-binding resolution further asserted that the 'pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal' (UN, 2011). The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2011 Better Life Index), European Commission (2016 European Social Progress Index) and Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation, based in Saudi Arabia (Islamic Inclusive Growth Index) now all undertake measurement of social progress going beyond conventional economic measures like GDP per capita. In 2010, the British Office for National Statistics (ONS) was asked by Prime Minister David Cameron to create a 'UK happiness index' as part of a £2m-a-year wellbeing project. Other indicators include the 'Happy Planet Index', created by the London-based think tank New Economics Foundation (NEF), ranking countries according to happy life years and particularly focusing on environmental goods and bads (NEF, 2008).

5

Diener and Ryan (2006) developed the most common way of measuring wellbeing based on a bounded scale to evaluate experience from 0 to 10 or 1 to 7 called the Cantril Self-Anchoring Scale, invented by pioneering social researcher Dr. Hadley Cantril. According to this scale, there is considered to be a minimum and maximum value to one's happiness. The problem is that it is thus assumed that there is a limit to maximum happiness. But
should subjective wellbeing or happiness be bounded or unbounded? It is difficult to analyse whether there are limits, which raises problems for such evaluations of subjective wellbeing. However, very few surveys report 10/10 (the average in the United Kingdom (UK) for example is 7/10), which would suggest that such boundaries are not exceeded.

But how do these measures translate into wellbeing or happiness policies? Proponents of using measures to inform policy have suggested measuring subjective wellbeing or happiness by using these happiness indexes and then, after looking at the drivers of happiness, trying to increase the values of the index through appropriate policy interventions. For some researchers, the value of such measures is not necessary to create new happiness policies but to reflect on whether we are currently happy with our lives and establish the determinants of happiness. Diener et al. (2009) suggest that policymakers and other stakeholders might ultimately use this information to decide, in the utilitarian tradition, whether policies influencing those determinants really result in a higher level of happiness for the greatest number. Such values could also be used to assess and value goods that cannot really be expressed in monetary terms, that is a non-market goods such as health care, social services, transport, environmental policies and government action (Diener and Ryan, 2006). Measuring wellbeing in this way might also provide crucial information on what people value most and therefore which policy goals should be chosen by governments. When resources are limited, it might help to decide which area or areas should be given priority, bringing the ethics of wellbeing into play (Diener et al., 2009: 54-63). Richard Kraut, for example, in his publication *What is Good and Why. The Ethics of Wellbeing* analyses what causes human beings to flourish: that is, what is good for us. He argues that what is good for complex organisms is the maturation and exercise of their natural powers (Kraut, 2009). The essential problem is coming to an agreement on the politics of happiness and whether happiness politics or wellbeing policies should be developed.

While there is a dispute on the role of government in formulating policy specifically to enhance subjective wellbeing or happiness, some proponents on increasing happiness, such as Layard (Layard, 2005), claim that they do have a role in ensuring that misery is avoided. Other advocates of happiness politics besides Layard have argued that happiness or wellbeing should guide policy (Donovan and Halpern, 2002; Veenhoven, 2002, 2004; Diener and Seligman, 2004; Marks, 2004; McAllister, 2005). Research has found that happy people tend to be more sociable, interesting and creative-minded (Argyle 2001). They also tend to have reduced stress levels and choose healthy lifestyles (Veenhoven, 2004). Overall happy individuals can have a positive overall effect on society. Indeed 'if we want a happier society, we have got to approach our own lives in a way that prioritises the things that really matter—including happiness of those around us' (Wilkinson, 2011). McAllister (2005) thus argues that policies to enhance the happiness of the population can only be beneficial. Those who promote happiness research and measurement also contend that it can have some use in public policymaking because it supplements macro-economic information (Frey and Stutzer, 2007).

However, detractors argue that it is difficult to increase happiness or wellbeing because of the woolly definition of both terms (Schoch, 2006; Wilkinson, 2007; Johns and Ormerod, 2007). Moreover, knowledge about the determinants of happiness still remains at the experimental stage (Donovan and Halpern, 2002). Measuring happiness and wellbeing and assessing its drivers to ultimately increase happiness is also based on normative political and ethical assumptions that presume, in the philosophical tradition of utilitarianism of
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, that happiness as the basic principle of ethics should be the ultimate goal in life; the greatest happiness of the greatest number. However, even though happiness may be intrinsically good, as ‘a universally understood and desired goal’ (Duncan, 2010: 11), it does not necessarily follow that maximising happiness should be an ethical or political goal.

9. Happiness remains a complex and contestable notion, so as Duncan underlines ‘any liberal-democratic polity would [...] need to consider how the ideal of happiness may be expressed within diverse communities’ (Duncan, 2010: 7). As individuals and cultures have different values and policy priorities, how people can achieve happiness or a good life may be questioned in the realm of policy-making (Duncan, 2010).

10. A number of detractors also claim that the pursuit of happiness can actually result in misery, especially if it involves trying to achieve material wellbeing (Mauss *et al.*, 2011; Gruber *et al.*, 2011; Ford *et al.*, 2017). Diener *et al.* argue against the maximization factor but defend action to enhance happiness not just for the present but also for future generations (Diener *et al.*, 2009). Indeed overemphasis on growth, markets and individual identity has led to systematic imbalance and may actually result in social costs which can exceed the private benefits in affluent societies where resources are allocated to meet citizens’ basic needs (Howard, 2012), especially if specific environmental and social policies are not implemented.

11. There can be negative consequences in maximising happiness. For example, an obligation to be happy may make one unhappy because of unrealistic expectations (Bruckner 2000; Buss, 2000, Nettle, 2005, De Pryckner, 2010), or stigmatise unhappy people (Bruckner 2000). Specifically, in the policy domain, there may be a misuse of happiness indicators. For example, different interest groups may try to distort or manipulate figures. It might mean individuals misinforming on their happiness levels to influence policymakers and policymaking (McMahon, 2005; Frey and Stutzer, 2007). Happiness data may also be used selectively to fit the political agenda: for example showing that freedom is an important factor in happiness to support a liberal programme.

12. So there would seem to be two essential problems in putting happiness on the agenda in public policy. First, policymakers will often promote happiness if it coincides with their own objectives and the likelihood of being elected. Second, if people know that their answers are to be used for happiness policies, they may misreport their answers to avoid manipulation by policymakers or provide a supportive response, as in some cultures feelings are not easily expressed. Finally, policies aimed at increasing happiness are not difficult or impossible to implement, but they may have a negative impact on social welfare as illustrated by Bhutan’s attempt to adopt nationwide Gross National Happiness (GNH) policies, which neglected other aspects such as chronic unemployment, poverty, education and corruption. Indeed, Bhutanese Prime Minister Mr Togbay claimed upon his election in 2013 that ‘the concept was overused and masked problems with corruption and low standards of living’ (BBC News, 2013). He went on to criticize the GNH as distracting the government away from delivering basic services.

13. Indeed, the emphasis on subjective wellbeing and, in particular, ‘deliberative’ utilitarianism moves the focus away from other more objective concerns linked to inequality or welfare (Blanchflower, 2004; Gadrey, 2012). Many of the current wellbeing measures and wellbeing policies that have been developed take very little account of structural inequalities or social relations between communities, which are also significant key drivers of wellbeing. Moreover, subjective wellbeing is close to the sense of economic
utility, relating to 'personal benefit gained by an individual from a particular interaction or a particular behavior' (Eichhorn 2013). The resurgence of 19th century laissez-faire economic liberalism since the 1980s is thus a key to the current context of wellbeing, which favours less general social welfare and a greater need to measure individual wellbeing and apply measures related to improving this (Scott, 2012; Eichhorn, 2013, Coron and Dalingwater, 2017).

14 Another drawback of measuring subjective wellbeing is that it is looking at individual satisfaction rather than social content. It is not gauging improvements in quality of life or human progress (Eckersley, 2013). Diener and his co-researchers who were pioneers in developing measures of subjective wellbeing remain very cautious about how these measures could be actively used to inform policy and practice. At the same time, the authors show that alternative measures provide useful supplementary information and give citizens' views on how well or badly they perceive changes in society (Diener et al., 2013). The question of reliability of data is very important to bear in mind. For example, Diener et al. (2013) reported that when political questions were raised after asking people to evaluate their life satisfaction, people tended to view the questions from the perspective of satisfaction with their personal lives and not related to the societal and political affairs context. This might mean that individuals are happy with their own lives, but dissatisfied with society-wide conditions. Americans have been said to be losing confidence in the nation, but still believe in themselves and it is mainly the latter evidence (happiness with their own lives) which is measured by the most recent subjective wellbeing indicators. If you ask Americans whether they are happy, from an individual perspective they will probably give positive answers. However, two thirds of Americans also believe that the past decade is one of decline, not progress. They consider the future to be bleaker for their children (Eckersley, 2013).

## 2. Wellbeing Policies and Political Spectrums

15 The use of wellbeing for political ends depends, of course, on which side of the political spectrum wellbeing is being considered. The 'political left' for example is inclined to put emphasis on social wellbeing and the creation and maintenance of welfare states, whereas 'right wing' governments might focus on economic wellbeing, whereby the market is prioritised in order to create prosperity (Atkinson and Morelli, 2012). Although 'left' and 'right' have less meaning today with the rise of centrism, both political leanings claim that their philosophies are the best way forward for the country in both economic and social terms and ultimately for the wellbeing of its citizens.

16 The debate is therefore whether subjective and objective wellbeing varies depending on a particular type of policy implementation (De Prycker, 2010). Veenhoven (1997) and Diener et al. (1995) found that countries that were considered to be more individualist than collectivist reported greater mean levels of happiness. They argue that this leaves individuals scope for more choices to lead their own lives or seek their own happiness. This is in contrast to earlier research. Lindblom (1977: 82) argues that pursuing a market-led political approach leads to greater insecurity for the population. Esping-Andersen (1990) contends that in a market economy, individuals are also captive to power which is not within their control, which then results in greater stress levels. Economically liberal governments argue that too much intervention of the state can make individuals powerless because of intrusive governmental bureaucracy and can also result in too much
dependency and complacency, which is negative in terms of self-respect and autonomy. To what extent governments should be intrusive is a very significant question. If it is to ensure security and safety, intervention is crucial. However, neoliberal theory³ would contend that too much intervention of the state may be detrimental to individual wellbeing. This can be linked to a more general reflection on the role of the welfare state.

17 The objective of the welfare state is to reduce inequality and poverty. However, there is a debate about the extent to which this purpose is served. Economically liberal governments tend to accuse excessive state intervention and a tight welfare state of crowding out the private sector because of excessive public spending (Bacon and Eltis, 1976) while encouraging dependency on the state of the unemployed. Collectivism can also have negative effects on individual privacy, freedom and autonomy. So whether welfare is good for society and ultimately makes it happier is often linked to the debate around entitlements and the market. Too much welfare and decommodification⁴ might result in inefficiency and wastefulness, which will impose costs on society that will ultimately reduce overall levels of happiness.

18 However, is there any proof that either increasing or decreasing welfare can have any effect on subjective wellbeing or happiness? Veenhoven (2000) in a comparative study of 41 nations from 1980 to 1990 studied the link between levels of wellbeing and the size of the welfare state and concluded that there was no link. The only justification for increasing or decreasing welfare would be according to political ideologies. Radcliffe (2001) on the other hand found a strong positive connection between life satisfaction and welfare. He concludes that ‘subjective evaluation of life is enhanced by the extent to which the state reduces market dependence through the decommodification of labour and, in general, adopts a social democratic welfare regime.’ However, Pacek and Radcliffe (2008) contend that neither study is ultimately convincing because of poor design. In order to measure the impact of welfare on happiness, some have concentrated on the level of expenditure, but as Esping-Andersen (1988) underlines this is not necessarily very relevant or even perhaps misleading, because it does not sum up the state’s commitment to welfare.

19 Esping-Andersen (1990) delves deeper into the question of the quality of the welfare state in *The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism*. He examines the role of decommodification and how this reflects the quality as well as quantity of social rights and entitlements. Decommodification for him means that individuals can opt out of work if necessary and it will not impinge on their overall welfare. They are thus not dependent on the market. Emancipation from market dependency is measured by the level of pensions, income allowance for ill health or disablement and unemployment benefits. Generous welfare states will have a higher degree of decommodification. Another measure that Esping-Andersen uses to compare levels of welfare is in terms of the social wage; that is the share of national income that is distributed according to social need rather than by market distribution.

20 According to Pacek and Radcliffe (2008), welfare states contribute to human wellbeing and if welfare is reduced, people are forced to act as commodities to survive. Albert Einstein (1949) argued that socialism was the best way of structuring society to make human life as satisfying as possible. He also contended that capitalism encourages one to see society not as a positive asset but as a threat to natural rights. Pacek and Radcliffe support his theory: ‘market economies tend to make individuals prisoners of their own egotism’, so that ‘they feel insecure, lonely and deprived of the naïve, simple, and
unsophisticated enjoyment of life' (Pacek and Radcliffe, 2008). The political debate on the role of the market and state intervention thus plays a significant role in the development of wellbeing policies. It is particularly relevant if we look at the set of countries which make up the Anglosphere. These countries have adhered quite strongly to neoliberal policies and given a significant role to the market even in the public policy domain.

## 3. Reflecting on Wellbeing Policies in the Anglosphere

But how might we define the Anglosphere and why might it be relevant to consider this sphere in relation to the political economy of wellbeing? The Anglosphere⁵ can be defined as “the countries of the world in which the English language and cultural values predominate” (Merriam-Webster). Apart from sharing the same language, these countries also have common institutions inherited from the colonial past with democratic parliaments largely based on the British political system and legal system of common law. The creation of political parties in these countries was largely inspired by British bipartism and to some extent its welfare state. Since the 1980s, the neoliberal model⁶ and/or the so-called ‘Anglo Saxon model’ has also been a common feature in much of the Anglosphere.

The Anglosphere would seem to share a number of values and beliefs which are important in the context of wellbeing. The World Values Survey, a global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life, identifies the Anglosphere or English-speaking sphere, as they refer to it, as one of eight significant cultural spheres. A series of publications by this think tank⁷ aims to show that people's beliefs play a major role in economic development, the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, equality and effective government. These factors are also inherent ingredients of wellbeing. The common historical, cultural and language connections mean that comparisons within the Anglosphere may be more consistent than wider comparative studies of wellbeing.

Indeed wellbeing remains a complex notion and means different things to different people across cultures. Blanchflower and Oswald's study (2004) for example found that errors might have occurred when analysing wellbeing in Australia with too general and universal a comparison. Their study questions the UN Human Development Index's reporting where Australia now ranks 3rd in the world. The authors report on their own study of a sample of English-speaking nations which places Australia much lower in the ranking, claiming that their re-evaluation of subjective wellbeing in Australia is perhaps more reliable because of the choice to focus on countries with a common first language and historical ties. A similar approach was taken by Olafsson (2013) in his analysis of Nordic countries. It is for this reason that a number of comparative studies have chosen to concentrate on sub-samples where a common language, similar cultures and/or heritage can make wellbeing analysis more reliable.

The same reasoning is behind our decision to compare wellbeing policies within the Anglosphere. We felt that illustrating policies in a sub-sample of English-speaking nations would produce more reliable outcomes for debate. Some of these countries have also been pioneers in the creation of wellbeing measures as we have already illustrated. For this reason, we chose an international team of researchers and experts with particular knowledge of one or several countries of the Anglosphere.
25

While literature on the notion of wellbeing and measurement has been fairly extensive in the Anglosphere and beyond, produced by both researchers and policy institutions alike over the last decade, there would seem to be relatively less literature on how such work has contributed to the emergence of wellbeing policies, with the exception of a few studies produced for example by the NEF or the highly contested Legatum Institute.

26

Our analysis differs from these studies in its outreach and considers the establishment and development of wellbeing policies in several countries and regions of the Anglosphere (Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK and the USA) in particular policy domains: social policy, health, housing and education, from a historical and political perspective. It is interesting to explore whether these countries and regions of the Anglosphere, with similar cultural roots and strong adherence to neoliberal policies have developed similar policies to improve wellbeing. The contributions of this volume assess how policymakers are influenced by the specific national setting in the creation of a framework for wellbeing in various policy domains.

27

The debate on the role of the state in enhancing both material and subjective wellbeing is a theme which brings the articles together, and some common paths to wellbeing are illustrated in the collection of articles. Both Rodd's and Ewens's contributions show how New Zealand and Australia were pioneers in the creation of legislation and social policies to enhance wellbeing. New Zealand was the first country in the world to introduce public old age pensions in 1898, and the first country in the Anglosphere to establish a welfare state. Australia quickly followed suit in the wellbeing-through-welfare approach by introducing a minimum wage and a whole number of welfare reforms to increase safety, which is identified as one of the key drivers of wellbeing by Ewens. In stark contrast, Costantini describes how Hong Kong, which was under British rule until 1997, suffered from a deeply fragmented health care system until the 1990s and it was not until December 2000 that citizens could enjoy a statutory retirement pension scheme. Yet the author claims that Hong Kong has now developed one of the most advanced health and education systems in the world, which has driven improvements in the quality of life of its citizens. In his article, which analyses the link between health and wellbeing, Holdsworth contends that if political trends in the US regain the momentum that surrounded the Affordable Care Act, legislation would increasingly be able to provide health care to help people not only to get well, but also to live well and achieve greater happiness.

28

Several articles illustrate the move from collective welfare to individual wellbeing after the introduction of neoliberal policies in the 1980s. Indeed, Rodd describes the radical shift of policies in New Zealand centred on the 'people's wellbeing' to 'individual' wellbeing promoted by an 'enabling state' from the 1980s onwards. Dalingwater's contribution shows how, in the UK, connecting health and wellbeing has led to a strong individualist approach, centred on the 'self' and personal entitlements within the framework of self-improvement rather than enhancing collective actions to improve the health of nations. Smith's paper highlights the limits to the neoliberal form of intervention in the USA. Economic policies implemented in the 1980s, which focused on individual ownership as a way to happiness, were in part responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007, causing misery for many Americans. He thus questions the state's emphasis on homeownership as a way to happiness. Fée also shows how the increase in the role of the market in the provision of housing for British citizens has led to a decline in home ownership and social housing.
29

The way in which wellbeing measures have an influence over policy is also illustrated in a number of papers in this special issue. In post-crisis, austerity-driven Anglosphere economies, the papers show how the publication of the results of wellbeing measures is a way in which governments may well justify policy choices or actually retreat from intervention. Costantini suggests that wellbeing measures in Hong Kong have been formulated in order to reflect favourably on the government which has witnessed its initial autonomy further been reduced especially in the political sphere. But, to be fair, wellbeing indicators can be a way of directing policy to improve the quality of lives of its citizens. Dalingwater's contribution for example shows how significant use can be made of personal wellbeing data in terms of cost-benefit analysis of policy appraisals. Fée's article underlines that cost-benefit analysis is already used in the realm of housing. Both Dalingwater's and Fée's contributions show how statistics on personal wellbeing can inform governments about which areas of spending are likely to lead to the largest increases in personal wellbeing. However, such indicators may well be used to provide support for policies that already exist rather than to develop new policy directions or initiatives.

30

There has been an increasing emphasis on discourse to improve the wellbeing of citizens. Yet, some of the papers in this special issue show how political discourse on wellbeing, wellness or happiness may be a way of detracting from the shortcomings of the state. Holdsworth's paper shows how the focus in American health policy on wellbeing and wellness fails to solve the most fundamental problem of unaffordable health coverage. Many Americans are unable to get or pay for the clinical care they need. Smith's contribution contends that while American policymakers have consistently used happiness rhetoric and a specific notion of virtue to promote an ownership model of wellbeing, this may well have the opposite effect and make citizens feel unhappy if they fail to achieve accession to ownership. Fee's article underlines the disconnect between discourse on wellbeing in the UK since the 2008 financial crisis and effective policies to ensure decent housing for all.

31

Analysis of the implications of policy directions of the state, the use of measures to drive policy and policy discourse is thus at the heart of the contributions which show common trends across the Anglosphere, but also point to how wellbeing policies and practice are influenced by the specific national setting.

## 4. The contributions

32

Claire Ewens studies how, since the nation's federation and independence in 1901, authorities in Australia have made the wellbeing of their citizens a priority, through health and social justice legislation. She shows that the nation has evolved under the influence of the notions of solidarity and civic-mindedness, so that Australian legal milestones have been instrumental in bringing about the greatest wellbeing (both objective and subjective) for the greatest number of Australians. She underlines two features specific to Australia in this domain. First, the country has had a pioneering role in collective wellbeing legislation (with the universal minimum wage, compulsory seatbelts for every person in a motor vehicle, random breath testing of drivers, ban on firearms, and ban on attractive cigarette cartons) or even complete singularity (as with the compulsory vote). Second, far from resenting these laws, which people in other countries in the Anglosphere might consider meddlesome or intrusive, the vast majority
of Australians welcome them, as they tend to value equality and solidarity over individual rights.

33

**Adrian Rodd** examines **New Zealand's** quite radical **social and economic policies**. He first emphasizes that New Zealand was the first country in the English-speaking world to introduce significant public measures to improve working-class living standards, before setting up an unprecedented welfare state in the 1930s. He then shows that the dismantling of these policies half a century later was no less radical. His analysis is that the political conceptualisation of wellbeing, from collective to individual, is at the root of this evolution from Welfare State to 'Enabling State'.

34

**David Fée** analyses the link between wellbeing and **housing** in the **United Kingdom**. Relying on a long tradition of official data collection, he traces the evolution of British housing conditions, which are components of objective well-being, over the long term. He then explains how housing has become a public policy and how the official discourse on housing has varied according to the government in place between 1890 and 2018. Finally, considering the degree of satisfaction of British people regarding their homes and neighbourhoods, he examines whether the policy choices made in the field of housing since 2010 can improve the subjective well-being of British people.

35

**Bradley Smith** presents a brief history of the use of happiness and wellbeing rhetoric to bolster political support for the expansion of **homeownership** in the **United States**. After exploring the relation between the right to pursue happiness and the right to own property in the American founding documents, he studies the happiness discourse that accompanied the rise of the suburban model of homeownership in the 20th century. He contrasts this discourse with that which accompanied the policy shifts implemented in the late 20th century to conserve the model.

36

**Max Holdsworth** examines select **US health care** promotion campaigns and policies with reference to health, wellness, wellbeing and the social determinants of health. In particular, he looks at the health promotion campaign *Healthy People* and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010. He finds these initiatives reveal some of the changing perspectives on the meaning of health that are becoming more prevalent in the USA. US contemporary health policies are evolving in new directions towards wellness that in turn extend towards wellbeing and happiness. Nevertheless, the fundamental problem remains that there are many Americans without health insurance who are unable to get or pay for the clinical care they need. More quantitative information and consideration of social and neighbourhood determinants of health could help wellness and wellbeing along with health care feature more highly on the health policy agenda.

37

**Louise Dalingwater** considers the complexities of formulating and implementing joint **health** and wellbeing policies in the **United Kingdom** (UK). UK authorities have officially recognised a two-way relationship between health and wellbeing. Recent national publications and policy approaches in the UK have therefore incorporated wellbeing within almost all policy prescriptions. After analysing the origins of the health-wellbeing linkage, the author examines health and wellbeing policy articulation and prescriptions in official documents. She then reflects on the inherent difficulties of the joint framework approach.

38

**Inside Costantini** focuses on policy inputs in **health and education** in **Hong Kong** and their relationship with wellbeing. She examines the birth and the evolution of public
policies in health and education and their wellbeing outcomes, and explores more recent developments and forthcoming challenges. She makes specific reference to the colonial legacy and Chinese cultural environment, and assesses how particular factors (geography, history and politics) may have influenced health and education policies.

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## NOTES

1. “Well-being first entered English in the mid-16th century as a translation of the Italian term *benessere*. The word also derives from Spanish *bienestar* and post-classical Latin *bene esse*, both of which are documented from the mid-13th century. As modification of the gerund of ‘to be’ coupled with generalized adverb ‘well’ implies, *well-being* differs from mere *being* as a matter of quality or degree. The distinction between that which is essential for life and that which is not essential but improves the life of a person or community explains the tendency to treat *well-being* and *quality of life* synonymously.” University of Pittsburgh/ Jesus College, University of Cambridge (2011-2016), *Keywords project*, Keyword: Well-being, <http://keywords.pitt.edu/keywords_defined/well-being.html>

2. Note that the term had been used by some economists previously, like British economist Alfred Cecil Pigou who mentioned “social well-being” in *The Economics of Welfare* published in 1920 (p. 196).

3. Neo-liberalism can be defined as an “Ideology and policy model that emphasizes the value of free market competition”. There is considerable debate on the defining features of the neo-liberal thought and practice. However, there does appear to be a consensus on the fact that it emphasizes minimum state intervention and freedom of trade and capital. Although neo-liberalism emerged in the late 1930s during discussions held at the Walter Lipmann Conference, which brought together 26 economists and liberal thinkers, it became a central part of government policy in many parts of the Anglosphere towards the late 1970s.

4. Understood here as an exit from the labour market with little or no loss of income.

5. A term which has nevertheless become derogatory in recent time in relation to the neocolonial tone of brexiteers and what critics have classed as Empire 2.0.

6. Neo-liberalism can be defined as an “Ideology and policy model that emphasizes the value of free market competition”. There is considerable debate on the defining features of neo-liberal thought and practice. However, there does appear to be a consensus on the fact that it emphasizes minimum state intervention and freedom of trade and capital. Although neo-liberalism emerged in the late 1930s during discussions held at the Walter Lipmann Conference,
it became a central part of government policy in many parts of the Anglosphere towards the late
1970s.

7. See <http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp>, accessed on 5 November 2018.

AUTHORS

LOUISE DALINGWATER

Associate Professor of British Politics, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

ISIDE COSTANTINI

Associate Professor of British Politics, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

NATHALIE CHAMPROUX

Professor of British Politics, Université de Tours
# Linking Health and Wellbeing in Public Discourse and Policy: The Case of the UK

Santé et bien-être, discours et politique publique au Royaume-Uni

Louise Dalingwater

## 1. Introduction

<footnote n="1">1 Wellbeing is a much debated and much contested notion. While some may use wellbeing and happiness interchangeably (Layard, 2005), others tend to understand the concept in relation to life satisfaction, quality of life and sustainability (OECD, 2014; Scott, 2012). However, the literature has tended to equate subjective wellbeing to happiness (Diener, 2000; Argyle, 2001). As underlined in the introduction to this special issue, subjective wellbeing has three main components: first, life satisfaction, which is measured by national statistics bodies such as the Organisation for National Statistics (ONS) by asking people how happy they are overall with their life; second, emotions (a low level of negative emotions should result in a high level of wellbeing) and; finally, psychological wellbeing and eudaimonic¹ wellbeing (Diener, 2000; Argyle, 2001). Objective wellbeing or material wellbeing is somewhat different and related to real-life conditions: income, housing conditions, conditions at work, educational attainment, home environment, life expectancy, etc.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 It is also useful to contextualise the notion of wellbeing. It is perhaps in the health domain that this term is most frequently used. Yet it is also in the area of health that there is an overlap between subjective and objective wellbeing, in the same way as there can be an overlap between physical and mental health. For example, those suffering from chronic illnesses, such as Parkinson's disease or cancer patients may also be diagnosed with depression.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Wellbeing has emerged as a defining feature of health policy in recent years. Good health is considered to be a predictor for, or determinant of, a high level of wellbeing, and also</footnote>
an outcome. There is therefore a clear relationship between health and wellbeing, and
recent national publications and policy approaches in the UK have incorporated
wellbeing within almost all policy prescriptions. Indeed, the 2014 Department of Health
policy brief clearly states that “wellbeing” is a “shared government objective”
(Department of Health, 2014). It contends that raising levels of wellbeing can have
beneficial effects on health.

4

In the literature, health and wellbeing have often been described as bidirectional, whereby health has a significant impact on wellbeing and wellbeing an impact on health (Department of Health, 2014; Royo-Bordonada and Román-Maestre, 2015). Although health does not quite equate to wellbeing, it is considered to be one of the basic ingredients of wellbeing and a significant determinant and outcome. Nevertheless, wellbeing has many other drivers², health being just one of them.

5

From this perspective, it may be misleading to systematically employ the two notions
together in policy papers. Wellbeing is a contested notion, which also suggests that
articulation of interventions and policies to improve health and wellbeing may also meet
with difficulties.

6

But UK policymakers are perhaps aware of the conceptual difficulties. There is also a
communication strategy at play in linking health and wellbeing, as with mental health. In
recent years, more attention has been given by health authorities to improving mental
health and wellbeing. Linking mental health to wellbeing is said to reduce the stigma
attached to mental illnesses and can thus encourage more people to seek treatment
(Department of Health, 2012). The inclusion of wellbeing in health policy is therefore also
very much a communication tool because the term wellbeing is considered to be more
inclusive and acceptable. It is also clearly a holistic term that can incorporate both
physical and mental health.

7

This article will thus consider the complexities of formulating and implementing joint
health and wellbeing policies in the UK. It will begin by considering the origins of the
health-wellbeing linkage. It will then look at health and wellbeing policy articulation and
prescriptions using government policy papers and documents. Finally, it will consider the
inherent difficulties of the joint framework approach.

## 2. Origins of the Use of Wellbeing in Political Discourse and Policy Practice

8

Wellbeing has been part and parcel of our understanding of health at an international
level for many years before it started to be mentioned in national policy papers. Indeed,
in the World Health Organization (WHO) Constitution, the founding principles state:

> Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not
> merely the absence of disease or infirmity. (WHO, 1948)

9

However, it was only really in the last decade that the WHO started to establish a set of
indicators to measure wellbeing and create a policy framework. This can be explained by
the fact that wellbeing is a concept which was first scientifically examined in the field of
psychology and it is only more recently that the disciplinary borderline between
psychology and other social sciences has become blurred (Coron and Dalingwater, 2017).
The WHO Regional Office only recently set up a working group to measure wellbeing as
part of the framework of Health 2020: “Measurement of and Target Setting for Well-being” (WHO 2012). It found that wellbeing was multidimensional and as such included both objective and subjective components, and it was in this way that a link between health and wellbeing could be made.

10 It is particularly interesting to focus on the UK's approach to wellbeing measurement and policy implications because this country is regarded as being one of the most advanced countries in terms of measuring subjective wellbeing and developing a wellbeing agenda. Indeed, in recent years, UK policymakers have shown renewed interest in the notion of wellbeing, and especially subjective wellbeing or happiness, and how it might be measured at a national and regional level. In November 2010, the UK's ONS launched its Measuring National Wellbeing Programme, just after the publication of the Stiglitz 2009 study on alternatives to GDP for the measurement of economic performance and social progress (Stiglitz et al., 2009). It was also inspired by the development of a dashboard of indicators produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to measure both objective and subjective wellbeing. The intention was to establish a set of trustworthy indicators to understand and monitor wellbeing in the UK (ONS 2012a: 1). The results could then be used by government, policymakers but also the British population to improve personal or subjective wellbeing (ONS, 2012b: 33). The other important part of the process of wellbeing in the UK was looking at different domains and sectors, including health, and how they impact on subjective wellbeing and within these policy domains how subjective wellbeing might be improved (ONS, 2012b; Bache et al., 2016).

11 But interest in the area of subjective wellbeing or happiness had already arisen earlier in the UK and got wider national coverage from 2006 onwards with Layard's highly publicised academic work *Happiness: Lessons from a New Science* (2006). Just before the publication of Layard's well-known book, a framework of wellbeing was introduced at governmental level. The Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group was created and its first meetings were devoted to finding a common approach to wellbeing and incorporating coherent policies to enhance wellbeing (Dalingwater 2017). In one of its first meetings, the Working Group recognized that there was no common definition of wellbeing (Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group, 2006, Dalingwater 2017). The Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) was thus commissioned by central government to explore the use of wellbeing concepts in UK policy making. Following this meeting, SDU staff carried out a series of interviews with government departments to investigate how wellbeing was being used for policy development, what kind of approach and rationale was being used in relation to wellbeing, the strengths and weaknesses of such approaches and the possible benefits and barriers of using the term wellbeing and implementing policies in this area (Dalingwater, 2017).

12 The expected outcome was the development of a common understanding of wellbeing for policymakers to act upon at both national and local levels. However, the results of the committee showed that there was confusion between wellbeing and happiness with recent focus being on subjective wellbeing. While the same confusion was not acknowledged in relation to health, they did point out that a number of departmental policy statements related wellbeing to health alone, which made it difficult to give wellbeing a broader meaning across government sectors and departments (Dalingwater, 2017).
13 Following this report, and despite the aforementioned difficulties, a statement of common understanding was established cutting across all government departments:

**Wellbeing: Statement of Common Understanding**

Wellbeing is a positive physical, social and mental state; it is not just the absence of pain, discomfort and incapacity. It arises not only from the action of individuals, but from a host of collective goods and relationships with other people. It requires that basic needs are met, that individuals have a sense of purpose, and that they feel able to achieve important personal goals and participate in society. It is enhanced by conditions that include supportive personal relationships, involvement in empowered communities, good health, financial security, rewarding employment, and a healthy and attractive environment. (Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group, 2006: 3)

14 There are striking similarities at the beginning of this definition with the WHO's aforementioned 1948 definition of health. The Working Group has actually used all the key words present in the WHO's definition of health: "state" "complete physical, mental and social" "absence of pain" and "incapacity" which is very close in meaning to the WHO's "infirmity". It then actually cites a number of determinants that also relate to health. Health and wellbeing have thus become interchangeable notions in official discourse in the UK in line with the WHO's approach.

15 In his speeches in 2006 and 2010 on wellbeing, David Cameron describes both health and wellbeing as interchangeable notions, but also improved mental health as an essential driver of wellbeing.

16 In the 2006 speech, he underlines how leading healthy lifestyles can lead to improved health and wellbeing:

> Anyone looking at the health of our nation would conclude that some of the biggest prizes in terms of improved health and greater well-being would come through encouraging people to live healthier lifestyles. Smoking, Obesity. Substance and alcohol abuse. Sexual health. These are the four vital challenges of public health. (Cameron, 2006).

17 Whereas in the 2010, he describes good mental health as a driver of wellbeing:

> I think, actually, in the realm of mental health is an excellent example of a whole area that if you just look at economic growth, you are missing out on a huge part of wellbeing in terms of people's mental health, in terms of problems of depression. These are all issues that we need to think about properly as a country, rather than just sweep them under the carpet. (Cameron, 2010).

18 In various documents that have been written in recent years making explicit reference to the link between health and wellbeing (see Appendix for the most recent documents), the Department of Health acknowledges that its objectives as regards health and wellbeing are inseparable and that this is at the heart of all its activities, priorities and policy documents. Even earlier papers, such as the Public Health White Paper *Choosing Health: Making Healthy Choices Easier* (Department of Health, 2004) for example, make a number of commitments to include wellbeing in overall health strategy. The comprehensive public health information and intelligence strategy is said for example to aim at "bringing together sources of information on health and wellbeing from routine sources and local studies to give a comprehensive picture of how lifestyle factors affect health"
(Department of Health, 2004: 191). Many of the publications point to a bidirectional relationship between health and wellbeing. Some underline how boosting wellbeing can have an effect on health and vice-versa without taking a firm stance as to whether one has more influence than the other. The recent emphasis on including wellbeing analysis in health policies finds support in studies which have shown an important link between health and wellbeing.

## 3. Literature Review to Support the Link between Health and Wellbeing

19

These policy prescriptions are indeed supported by a number of studies which have explored the link between wellbeing and health. Some of the studies point to how reduced wellbeing (or ill-being) may result in poor health, whereas others point to the deterioration of wellbeing (both subjective and objective) as a result of ill health. It is not possible therefore to draw firm conclusions on which is the main driver or whether health and wellbeing influence each other on an equal footing. Studies have established a link for example between low wellbeing and heart disease (atherosclerosis) (Krantz and Manuck, 1984; Kubzansky and Kawachi, 2000; Stewart et al., 2007). Researchers have also found evidence to suggest that it is important to promote happiness because, among other things, happy people have been found to be less susceptible to stress and more likely to choose a healthy lifestyle (Veenhoven 2008). Other studies have found a link between happiness and longer life expectancy (Diener and Chan, 2011), between wellbeing and health outcomes (Howel et al., 2007), between higher wellbeing and stress reduction (Howel et al., 2007) and between higher levels of satisfaction and resistance to cold viruses (Cohen et al. 2003). Studies on the impact of sports, weight watching and reduction of alcohol and tobacco consumption have underlined the link between healthy lives and healthy minds (Sabatini, 2014).

20

Research has also shown that self-perceptions of health can have a knock-on effect on happiness. For example, Bok found that a fall by 20% in self-evaluations of health is associated with a significant decline in happiness (a 6% decline) (Bok, 2010). Self-reported health is important because it is connected to conditions that may not be detected through medical tests such as stress, depression, etc. Yet, some of the sickest people may not necessarily be those with the lowest wellbeing. It was found that those individuals who lost a limb or became quadriplegic reported equivalent satisfaction within a year compared to that reported before the accident. However, some other illnesses have shown to have a lasting effect on happiness such as chronic pain, depression or the onset of chronic or fatal disease such as AIDS or cancer (Bok, 2010). Such literature thus gives support to policymakers to link health and wellbeing when formulating policies. However, there are significant challenges to measuring wellbeing and then using those measures for policy prescriptions.

## 4. Challenges to Using Wellbeing Measures to Inform Wellbeing Policy

21

Wellbeing measures still remain at the experimental stage and are not intended to replace other more well-established measures in a variety of policy domains. In 2018, an
ONS report on how to use personal well-being data remained rather vague (ONS, 2018). The organization underlined four main uses of personal well-being: monitoring national well-being, use in the policy-making process, international comparisons and allowing individuals to make informed decisions about their own lives. However, the ONS did provide guidance for policy makers to make use of already existing data on personal wellbeing. For example, the Annual Population Survey (APS) provides information which enables comparisons between different ages and ethnic groups, but also differences within areas, in countries or regions. Such information can thus enable policy makers to target certain groups or regions which have the most need for policies to improve wellbeing. The ONS report underlined another significant use which can be made of personal wellbeing data, that is cost-benefit analysis of policy appraisals. Indeed statistics on personal wellbeing can inform governments about which areas of spending are likely to lead to the largest increases in personal wellbeing. A Green book is currently used jointly by HM Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to propose potential uses of personal well-being measures in social cost-benefit analysis (HM Treasury, 2018).

22

The Department of Health has some very specific ways in which it measures wellbeing within the health domain. First, measures are used in relation to mental wellbeing: questions used to measure mental wellbeing aim to assess whether life is worthwhile for example, levels of anxiety, satisfaction with one's life, etc. Such information is retrieved from the Integrated Household Survey. The Warwick/Edinburgh mental wellbeing scale is also used to measure positive mental wellbeing. Mental illness is measured using a general health questionnaire devised by the Department of Health (where a score of 4 or more indicates mental ill health). Objective wellbeing in the health domain is measured by life expectancy and mortality rates (Department of Health, 2012). However, the New Economic Foundation (NEF), which has actively promoted wellbeing policies, has nevertheless underlined the problems of the governmental wellbeing approach. The organisation argues that the wellbeing evidence that has been collected from measuring subjective wellbeing since 2010 might well be used to provide support for policies that already exist rather than to develop new policy directions or initiatives (NEF 2014). The problem is therefore how to identify the effectiveness of the wellbeing measures to inform policy.

23

The other problem is gauging the reliability of wellbeing measures. The essential problem with the current subjective wellbeing measures which involve asking participants how they are feeling today is that responses may be highly transient and there may be a lack of a common understanding of such questions (De Vos, 2012: 185-186; Bache et al., 2015). The answers may be given according to the interviewees' hopes and wishes for policy implications (Erikson, 1993: 77; Bache et al., 2015). Comparative issues have been seen as the biggest problem because different interpretations of wellbeing are difficult to compare among individuals, across regions, countries and different cultures (Diener, Suh, Lucas, and Smith, 1999; Stutzer and Frey, 2000; Di Tella and MacCulloch, 2008, 29-30; Bache et al., 2015). There is also the argument about to what extent government should be involved in raising levels of wellbeing.

24

Different traditions of economic thought affect whether improving wellbeing or happiness is the government's responsibility. Liberal tradition tends to think that it is not the business of the state and is concerned that the state may become “paternalistic”, “a nanny state” and/or “a big brother society” (NEF, 2014). However, in the area of health,
there is support from citizens for the intervention of the government, or at the very least
a tax-based public system, to ensure an adequate supply of public health services to the
nation (at least in the UK).

5. Health and Wellbeing Policy Implementation in the UK

25
If we take a look at the high number of policy papers linking health and wellbeing, it would seem that it is in the area of health, more than other policy areas, that the government has chosen to intervene and incorporate wellbeing (see Appendix). It would be impossible to review all the domains in which wellbeing is linked to health policy in the UK. This section will thus review policy in two areas: mental health and more generally measures to join up health and wellbeing at the local level. In these two domains the linkage between health and wellbeing has been significant.

26
In recent years, more attention has been given to mental health within public health policy prescriptions. While there is a dispute on the role of government to formulate policy specifically to enhance subjective wellbeing or happiness, some proponents of increasing happiness, such as the leading British academic on happiness, Lord Layard, claim that the government can have a role in ensuring that misery is avoided. Layard reports that one in six Britons suffer from poor mental health and notably depression and anxiety. He believes that it is the government's responsibility to mitigate such effects by tackling the root causes among other things (Layard, 2006). However, identifying the root causes of depression and anxiety is not simple and depends very much on the individual. Lots of factors may be involved including past or childhood experiences (abuse, bereavement, bullying), current pressures (long hours, housing or income problems...), drugs and medication and physical conditions (for example Parkinson's disease can cause depression). Treating the root causes is also very complex.

27
Linking mental health to wellbeing is also said to reduce the stigma attached to this disease and thus can allow for more effective treatment of the condition if both the patient and society accept this condition. The inclusion of wellbeing in health policy has thus become a communication tool or strategy with the term wellbeing making certain conditions more inclusive and acceptable. It is also a holistic term that can incorporate both physical and mental health. This is clear from the National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England which targets risk groups which may have not sought help previously. It focuses on the mental wellbeing of the population as a whole rather than mental health (Department of Health, 2002).

28
Wellbeing is thus perhaps a way of incorporating mental health within policy without stigmatising those suffering from mild to severe mental health issues. This was the case for example in a Department of Health policy briefing entitled *Wellbeing and Health* (Department of Health, 2012). The policy paper refers to the correlation between stopping smoking and gains in mental health and subjective wellbeing. Improvements in quality of diet are reported to lead to higher levels of good mental health in adolescents, although the relationship between mental health and diet is said to be complicated. They are thus differentiated but the link between the two is not made very clear. The document leads on to talk about initiatives to treat mental health problems such as cognitive behavioural therapy, self-help and computer-assisted therapy.
29

More generally, wellbeing discourse has also been used to join up health and wellbeing initiatives at the local level. Significant power to implement wellbeing initiatives was devolved to local authorities through the Local Government Act 2000 and the subsequent 2011 Act to enable local authorities to “do anything they consider likely to promote the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of their area” and included the creation of Local Strategic Partnership (LSPs). LSPs have been described as the “partnership of partnerships” and are made up of senior officers from the public sector (councils, health officers, police officers, Jobcentre Plus agents, community and voluntary sector representatives). In 2005, Lambeth LSP (Lambeth School Partnership) launched a Mental Health and Wellbeing Promotion Programme. The Liverpool Primary Care Trust also developed the 2010 Year of Health and Wellbeing programme. Lancaster County Council teamed up with the NHS Primary Care Trust (PCT)³ and devoted a significant amount of resources to provide services to support psychological and social wellbeing by setting up a social prescribing project. This involved the use of non-medical interventions to improve wellbeing. In Hertfordshire the county’s schools forum contributed the sum of £250,000 to support the creation of a resilience programme, following a successful pilot programme. Resilience training has also been extended to other initiatives such as ‘Think Family’ and parenting programmes (Local Government Group 2010). The intention is that these programmes eventually become financially self-sustaining⁴, as training places are sold to other local authorities (Dalingwater, 2017).

30

Such initiatives have been continued in recent times (Dalingwater, 2017). The Lyons inquiry reinforced the importance of ‘place shaping’, which it defined as “the creative use of powers and influence to promote the general wellbeing of a community and its citizens” (Lyons, 2010). The 2012 Health and Social Care Act created Health and Wellbeing Boards in each locality to continue this joined up approach to health and wellbeing. Subsequently, Newcastle established Newcastle’s Wellbeing for Life Strategy. The strategy is intended to improve the situation of low employment and poor outcomes for health and education. Other wellbeing projects include the partnership between the Young Foundation, Professor Richard Layard of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and three local authorities: Hertfordshire County Council, Manchester City Council and South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council. The aim of the Local Wellbeing Project is to build new communities that can flourish and become socially sustainable to ensure the wellbeing, quality of life and satisfaction of present and future residents. A number of projects have been created such as organising meetings and forums to facilitate contact between neighbours, giving residents opportunities to influence decisions in the community and giving residents the power to control local circumstances through a forum of ideas. The local wellbeing project team set up a series of information campaigns so that these communities understand how they can influence decisions and control local circumstances (Hothi, 2007).

31

The 2012 Health and Social Care Act also devolved new responsibilities to local government in public health, as set out in the Health White Paper (Department of Health, 2004). Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) have thus been created focusing on early intervention and prevention and, in addition, joint strategic asset assessments (JSAAs). These work on the aforementioned determinants of ill health, but also on diminished wellbeing. The aim of these initiatives is to give special attention to real needs and assets of an area rather than just on the delivery of traditional services. A series of assessments
are produced by health and wellbeing boards. Policy interventions are then taken either by the local authority in the area, the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) or the NHS Commissioning Board depending on the needs identified. For example, if the local needs assessment identifies poor health outcomes in a specific area, then all three organizations will be involved in initiatives to improve poor health outcomes (Department of Health 2017).

32

However, the Local Government Group underlined a number of difficulties for local governments to set up a credible health and wellbeing policy. In a review conducted in 2006, it was found that while 92 per cent of aforementioned LSPs were aware of the power of competence to promote wellbeing, only 8 per cent had used it (Local Government Group 2010). The major challenge for local authorities in the use of wellbeing power has been linking wellbeing to health when the former is so ill-defined and can also create legal complexities. Moreover, while the aforementioned Acts of 2000, 2011 and 2012 grant power to local authorities to enact wellbeing policies, they often meet with restrictions because certain policies may be prohibited elsewhere in legislation and the term “wellbeing” remains very elusive. And if enacting wellbeing policies does not coincide with business interests, business associates may argue that wellbeing policies are ineffective, inadequate or impeding growth. This is indeed the danger when wellbeing is both associated and decoupled from policy initiatives. For example, the Brent LBC versus Risk Management Partners court case did not favour the local authority in its use of the wellbeing power in 2009 (Local Government Group 2010)⁵. The government cannot give a legal endorsement of the use of the wellbeing power so it is left to the courts to decide. In addition, local authorities are restricted by budgetary cuts. The Department for Communities and Local Government underwent a 40% budget cut in the 2011/12 to 2015/6 period, which significantly reduced any action taken under the framework of health and wellbeing policies (Dalingwater, 2017). Moreover, it could be argued that the new approach to combining health and wellbeing, which was reinforced by the 2012 Health and Social Care Act and emphasis on measuring wellbeing, is also a way of shifting the responsibility for health outcomes to the individual and rationing health care.

# 6. Wellbeing Discourse: Shifting Responsibility and Rationing

33

Indeed, in practice, there are a number of concerns about this joined-up approach. Wellbeing, especially subjective wellbeing, is seen as an individual process. Beyond the specific community-based approach, a lot of health and wellbeing projects often focus on individual responsibility and may encourage disengagement of key health actors in the localities. It could be a way of filling a void for those functions that used to be fulfilled by social institutions, which have been taken over by the market (Ferguson, 2015; Li, 2014; White 2017). These “person-centred” policies could in fact be a way of creating a false self (Craib, 1994) or including a false self in a process which is not really inclusive of the individual. Wellbeing has in fact been developed as strongly individualistic, centred on the self and personal entitlements within the framework of self-improvement (Rose, 1998; White 2017).

34

Further examination of policy papers makes it clear that developing a more far-reaching wellbeing policy in the regions is intended to reduce the health care burden. Indeed in its
document “Wellbeing why it matters to health policy”, the Department of Health claims that “a focus on wellbeing can lead to improved wellbeing and improved health outcomes, which may ultimately reduce the care burden.” (Department of Health, 2013: 3) Wellbeing, and particularly, subjective wellbeing places the emphasis on the ‘individual’, on the ‘personal’ and ‘subjective’ and personal empowerment rather than collective or the community. Indeed, Sointu (2005) and Atkinson & Joyce (2011) show how the notion of wellbeing has moved from relating to the population to concentrate on the individual. Extending policy from health interventions, relating to both mental and physical health, which is generally seen as collective, to wellbeing and health is indeed a way of transferring responsibility to the individual.

35

Making an association with wellbeing thus underlines that the individual is responsible for the health care process by taking responsible actions to ensure that the treatment will work, by for example monitoring his or her weight, giving up smoking, reducing drinking, eating more healthily, taking exercise. Health care workers are now strongly encouraged to engage the individual as part of the wellbeing approach to take care of his or her health. Such a rationale began essentially in 1997 with the arrival of the New Labour government and has been continued, based on the notion of agency, autonomy and self-responsibility, as part of the “responsible citizen” mantra. Policy papers make this quite clear as is evident from the quote and diagram below:

> You should recognise that you can make a significant contribution to your own, and your family's good health and well-being, and take some personal responsibility for it. (NHS England, 2009: 9).

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Wellbeing: a means to ultimately reduce the healthcare burden</figcaption></figure>

Source: Department of Health, 2013

36

The idea of transforming health completely into a private responsibility and full privatisation of the British National Health Service is unlikely because public support for this institution is very strong. However, making an individual responsible for his or her health and wellbeing has resulted in the rationing of health care. According to Pollock
(2004), some surgeons will decline to perform elective surgery if patients do not follow advice such as stopping smoking and losing weight. Moreover, promoting improvements in health and wellbeing through work have been a way of reducing welfare benefits to the disabled and sick. Indeed, in a speech entitled ‘Health and Wellbeing’, David Freud, former Minister for Welfare Reform, claims how getting the sick back to work is important for increased wellbeing:

> Work provides more than just an income. Employment can also give people a sense of purpose, some structure to their lives. It can also be an important part of people's social lives. Quite simply work is good for you. (Freud 2011).

37 While research has shown a firm link between unemployment and lower levels of wellbeing, the essential objective in promoting improved health and wellbeing by encouraging these disabled and sick workers back to work is also to reduce payments of disability benefits. Cuts were made to benefits as part of the austerity measures introduced by the UK coalition government of 2010. By 2017, nearly half of disabled (sick or infirm) people had been reassessed and had seen a fall or removal of benefits (Bulman, 2017). A study which collected information from 137 disabled workers and 141 organizations to investigate the effects of welfare reforms since 2010 has shown that in many cases efforts to get people back to work failed and the disabled who were forced back to work were suffering from low levels of wellbeing (Harwood, 2015).

38 The individual approach to wellbeing has been reinforced by an emphasis on wellbeing from Sen's capability approach. This approach essentially focuses on the person and his or her capabilities. Capabilities are important to enable an individual to act in the way that he or she sees fit (Sen, 1983, 160). Think tanks in the UK, such as the New Economic Foundation (NEF), have also developed actions to improve wellbeing which imply individual action: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning (NEF, 2008). Indeed, the latter all target individual behavior. On the other hand, Layard underscores how important collective, and not just individual projects, are to enhance personal wellbeing (Layard, 2006).

39 Emphasis on wellbeing may actually thwart other more collective actions to improve health outcomes. Improvements are much easier to publish in wellbeing and subjective wellbeing than concrete progress in health outcomes. This is because subjective measures of wellbeing are actually measuring modernisation and satisfaction with modernisation rather than real improved quality of life and development (Eckersley, 2013).

40 The underlying weakness of bringing in measures and accompanying policies which link wellbeing and health is thus that there is increasing emphasis on the individual and individual satisfaction rather than collective notions of social engagements which are very important in the health sector. Freedom is prioritised for example above collective action. Neoliberal policy approaches put greater emphasis on individual choice and freedom. However, such an approach has also shown to have significant health risks such as isolation and can have a significant impact on mental health. For example, Eckersly noted a link between freedom and increased rates of mental health problems among Western youth (Eckersly 2005, 2009, 2011).
# 7. Misleading Definitions and Usage

41 Moreover, because of the definitional problems associated with wellbeing, the association of health and wellbeing in policy could be quite detrimental to policies which aim to improve health outcomes. It is important to emphasise that health does not quite equate to wellbeing, even though it might be one of the basic ingredients of wellbeing and a significant determinant and outcome. Health alone does not make up wellbeing. The latter has many other drivers, including work and life balance, family and friends, etc. So, health is just one driver among many. Nevertheless, health and wellbeing are indeed systematically used together in policy papers.

42 The WHO definition of health which incorporates wellbeing, and on which the UK's definition of wellbeing is based, can actually lead us to misinterpret the meaning of health. Indeed, if the WHO's definition is taken literally, it implies that individuals are unhealthy if they are unhappy with their lot in life or if they feel unfulfilled. It can also be interpreted as suggesting those with poor health cannot be happy. This discredits research which has developed coping theory (Lazarus et al., 1974; Costa and McCrae, 1989; Krohne, H. W. and Hindel, C., 1988; Lazarus, 1993), whereby those with a defined disease, illness or disability can actually reach a certain level of happiness if they are well cared for.

43 The Department of Health has tried to clarify such a situation admitting that “terminology around wellbeing and health is often used interchangeably, and sometimes, incorrectly used” (Department of Health 2012). It has more recently attempted to clarify the 2006 definition (given above) and defines wellbeing as “an individual's experience of their life; and a comparison of life circumstances with social norms and values” distinguishing between subjective wellbeing: “how people think and feel about their own wellbeing” (life satisfaction, positive affect, meaningfulness) and objective wellbeing: referring to basic human needs and rights. It gives a further definition of mental wellbeing as “part of overall wellbeing (...) more than just the absence of mental illness (...) a positive state of mind and body, underpinned by social and psychological wellbeing” as opposed to mental illness which is described as “a range of mental health problems that can cause marked emotional or cognitive distress” (Department of Health, 2012). However, subsequent policy papers with policy prescriptions for health and wellbeing make this distinction less clear as discussed earlier.

# 8. Conclusion

44 To conclude, there is some evidence to suggest that linking wellbeing to health may help formulate policy and improve health outcomes, especially in the domain of mental health to remove the stigma surrounding such health issues. At the same time, creating a policy framework which joins up health and wellbeing in the UK can also be seen as a way of shifting the financial burden of health onto the individual, which has led to the rationing of health care and welfare. As time goes on, wellbeing is likely to become devoid of meaning and out of fashion and be replaced by a new definitional communication tool to fit the policy direction of those in power. White goes as far as to say that current references to wellbeing actually reflect cultural anxiety and significant ill-being, which she links to the “erosion of the social” (White, 2017: 133). This might suggest why
wellbeing has been used so frequently in the health domain, without necessarily being
the most effective tool to guide policy to improve the health of the nation.

# Appendix: Recent Policy Papers and Government Documents Linking Health and Wellbeing

1. Defence people mental health and wellbeing strategy

◦ 15 March 2018

◦ MOD

◦ Policy paper

2. Women in prison: standards to improve health and wellbeing

◦ 8 March 2018

◦ PHE

◦ Guidance

◦ Part of the collection: Public health in prisons and secure settings

3. Health matters: community-centred health and wellbeing approaches

◦ 28 February 2018

◦ PHE

◦ Guidance

◦ Part of the collection: Health matters: public health issues and Health matters: public health issues

4. Wellbeing and mental health: applying All Our Health

◦ 21 February 2018

◦ PHE

◦ Guidance

◦ Part of the collection: All Our Health: personalised care and population health

5. Health, Safety & Wellbeing Awards 2017

◦ 12 December 2017

◦ Highways England

◦ Form

6. The wellbeing of 15-year-olds: analysis of the What About YOUth? survey

◦ 17 January 2018

◦ PHE

◦ Guidance

7. Wellbeing and health

◦ 31 July 2013

◦ Cabinet Office and DHSC

◦ Research and analysis

◦ Part of the collection: National wellbeing

8. Health and Wellbeing Fund 2017 to 2018: application form

◦ 10 October 2017

◦ DHSC and PHE

◦ Form

9. Improving health and wellbeing through our national parks

◦ 8 September 2017
* PHE

* Policy paper

10. Future of the sea: health and wellbeing of coastal communities

* 31 August 2017

* GO-Science

* Research and analysis

* Part of the collection: Future of the sea

11. Five ways to mental wellbeing

* 22 October 2008

* GO-Science

* Guidance

* Part of the collection: Mental capital and wellbeing

12. Health and wellbeing board duties

* 17 July 2013

* DHSC

* Consultation outcome

45

First published during the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

1. Wellbeing and health policy

* 6 February 2014

* DHSC

* Guidance

* Part of the collection: National wellbeing

2. Health and wellbeing of service personnel

* 1 October 2010

* MOD

* Independent report

3. Preventing homelessness to improve health and wellbeing

* 1 July 2015

* PHE

* Research and analysis

* Part of the collection: Homes for health

4. Arts for health and wellbeing: an evaluation framework

5. Mental health and wellbeing of looked-after children: response

* 13 September 2016

* DfE and DHSC

* Policy paper

6. JSNAs and joint health and wellbeing strategies

* 19 January 2012

* DHSC

* Guidance

7. Supporting the health and wellbeing of military families

* 19 November 2015

* PHE
o Guidance

o Part of the collection: Public health contribution of nurses and midwives: guidance and Public health contribution of nurses and midwives: guidance

8. Health and wellbeing: introduction to the directorate

o 16 May 2013

o PHE

o Guidance

9. Defence annual health and wellbeing report 2015

o 20 June 2016

o MOD

o Corporate report

o Part of the collection: Defence health and wellbeing annual reports

10. Health and wellbeing at work: survey of employees

o 21 July 2015

o DWP

o Research and analysis

o Part of the collection: Research reports from 2010 onwards

11. Health and wellbeing of people in England: 2010

o 30 November 2010

o DHSC

o Policy paper

46

First published during the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

1. Midwifery services for improved health and wellbeing

o 26 June 2013

o DHSC and PHE

o Guidance

o Part of the collection: Public health contribution of nurses and midwives: guidance

2. Children's and young people's voices on their wellbeing

o 27 September 2012

o DfE

o Research and analysis

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## NOTES

1. A state of being happy, healthy and prosperous.

2. The European Social Survey for example points to security, safety, work-life balance among other issues: <http://esswellbeingmatters.org/drivers/index.html>.

3. The NHS Primary Care Trusts were formerly Britain's National Health Service (NHS) hospital management units.

4. Financial sustainability does not necessarily take into account the human costs. When new structures are built, the social cost is not always taken into consideration. Here we are therefore referring to collective wellbeing and sustainability rather than individual wellbeing.

5. The Risk Management Partners claimed that Brent local authority had no right to open up risk management to other providers even if it was to reduce overheads in order to allocate these savings to wellbeing policies.
ABSTRACTS

Wellbeing has emerged as a defining feature of health policy in recent years. In the UK, a 2014 briefing paper from the Department of Health stated that there is a two-way relationship between health and wellbeing because health has an impact on wellbeing and wellbeing also impacts on health. Good health is a predictor for, or determinant of, a high level of wellbeing, and also an outcome. There is therefore a clear relationship between health and wellbeing. Recent national publications and policy approaches in the UK have incorporated wellbeing within almost all policy prescriptions. This article will consider the complexities of formulating and implementing joint health and wellbeing policies in the UK. It will begin by considering the origins of the health-wellbeing linkage. It will then look at health and wellbeing policy articulation and prescriptions using government policy papers and documents. Finally, it will consider the inherent difficulties of the joint framework approach.

Le bien-être est apparu comme une composante déterminante de la politique de santé au cours
de ces dernières années. Au Royaume-Uni, un document d'information publié en 2014 par le
ministère de la Santé (Department of Health, 2014) indique qu'il existe une relation
bidirectionnelle entre la santé et le bien-être, l'un et l'autre s'influençant mutuellement, sans
cependant se confondre. Il existe une relation claire entre la santé et le bien-être et les récentes
publications nationales et approches en politique de santé au Royaume-Uni ont incorporé le
bien-être dans la plupart des recommandations politiques. Cet article met en évidence les
complexités de la formulation et de la mise en œuvre de politiques conjointes de santé et de bien-
être au Royaume-Uni. Il commence par examiner les origines du lien santé-bien-être ; il se
penche ensuite sur l'articulation entre les politiques et les recommandations en matière de santé
et de bien-être à l'aide de documents gouvernementaux. Enfin, il examine les difficultés
inhérentes à l'approche d'un cadre commun d'analyse.

INDEX

Keywords: wellbeing, UK, government, policy papers, health

Mots-clés: bien-être, Royaume-Uni, gouvernement, prescriptions politiques, santé

AUTHOR

LOUISE DALINGWATER

Maître de conférences, Laboratoire CERVEPAS (CREW), louise.dalingwater@univ-paris3.fr
# Wellbeing through Legislation and Litigation: the Australian Example

## Le bien-être à travers la législation et les litiges : l'exemple australien

### Bronwen Claire Ewens

## 1. Introduction

1. "Australian political culture is very utilitarian and looks at the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The United States and Britain are individual-right cultures, so the idea that you should be forced to do something for the greater good of the majority would not be something that's inherent in the political culture," states Professor Ian McAllister of the Australian National University (ANU), in explaining why compulsory voting, unique in the Anglosphere, enjoys "widespread support" across the nation. (McAllister, 2016). In the same interview identifying differences between Australian sociopolitical culture and those of the two most populous Anglophone countries, McAllister noted that compulsory voting has 'widespread' national support, noting that opinion surveys by the ANU show that the 'portion of people who are very strongly in favour of it (compulsory voting) far outnumber the people who are very strongly against it'.

2. Is it Australia's compulsory voting laws that underpin this utilitarian political culture and how successful is it in ensuring subjective wellbeing (SWB), if this is taken to mean 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number'? In April 2001, the year after Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi introduced the concept of positive psychology, (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) the Australian Unity mutual company and Deakin University's Centre on Quality of Life started producing the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index (AUWI), a comprehensive measure of how satisfied Australians were with their lives referenced in academic journals worldwide (Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, 2011). This far pre-dates Nicolas Sarkozy's and David Cameron's preoccupations with assessing non-material wellbeing in the wake of the 2007 global financial crisis.

3. For nearly two decades, the AUWI has evaluated satisfaction with life across a range of areas - standard of living, health, achievement (purpose) in life, personal relationships,
safety, community connection and future security; in other words, it assesses Australians' satisfaction with their own lives as well as with life in general in Australia, which covers national preoccupations such as security and the economy (Hawkins, 2014). Also in 2001, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) published *Measuring Wellbeing*, a book giving primacy to objective indicators while acknowledging that "(t)here can be no single measure of wellbeing that satisfies all parties interested in helping people improve their lives." (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001).

4

In its 33rd Personal Wellbeing findings, published in 2016, the AUWI found that “[t]he Personal Wellbeing Index has been generally rising over the last 16 years and it is currently, numerically, at its highest level yet recorded (76.7 points)” (Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, 2016).

5

According to the 2017 *Better Life Index* created by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which measures both subjective and objective indicators, this is a good outcome. “In general, Australians are more satisfied with their lives than the OECD average. When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, Australians gave it a 7.3 grade on average, higher than the OECD average of 6.5” (OECD, 2017).

6

This paper will examine Australian legal milestones that have been instrumental in bringing about the greatest wellbeing (both objective and subjective) for the greatest number of Australians, and how Australians have accepted the costs and constraints they have engendered in a way that ‘individual-rights’ cultures in the Anglosphere¹ notably the USA and the UK, might consider unpalatable.

## 2. Pioneering in Legislating for Fair Minimum Wage

7

In *The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone's Wellbeing*, Wilkinson and Pickett demonstrate that subjective suffering in the form of stress, anxiety, depression and addiction is worse in economically unequal societies like the UK and the US than in the least unequal ones (Norway, Finland and Japan) (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2018).

8

Relative, not absolute deprivation, is the driver of a lack of subjective wellbeing. Wilkinson and Pickett cite research from the *Journal of Social Policy* showing that while the poor in Britain and Norway are objectively far better off than the poor in India and Uganda, “the subjective experience of being poorer than others in each society was found to be remarkably similar.... (they experienced an) internalized sense of shame” that engendered feelings of self-loathing, despair and depression. (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2018).

9

According to the OECD's Better Life Index, the **average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita in Australia** is USD 33 417 a year, more than the OECD average of USD 30 563 a year, but there is a considerable gap between the richest and poorest – **the top 20% of the population earn more than five times as much as the bottom 20%** (OECD, 2017). This distribution is comparable to Canada's and less unequal than that prevailing in the UK and USA, as well as Japan. In the US, the ratio of the difference in earnings between the top 20 percent and the bottom 20 percent is as high as eight (OECD, 2017).
10 Australia is not a socialist country, nor does it lack for billionaires. In fact, Gina Rinehart, the richest Australian, has at times been named the richest woman in the world. Moreover, the billionaire population is booming. With a population of 25 million, Australia counted 33 billionaires, an increase from 24 a year ago (SBS, 2018).

11 One fact mitigating the effects of the fivefold difference between the earnings of the top and bottom 20 percent is that social mobility in Australia, even if somewhat lower than in Canada, is markedly higher than in the UK or US. This was shown in major comparative study by the US-based Stanford Centre on Poverty and Inequality by Miles Corak, an economics professor at the University of Ottawa. (Corak, 2016). It is also worth noting that despite the OECD statistic, the World Economic Forum reported in 2016 that Australia had the world's highest minimum wage, US$ 9.54, after the relevant adjustments are made for the post-tax rate and for purchasing power parity (World Economic Forum, 2016).

12 The concept of a 'fair and reasonable wage' – an obvious means of promoting socioeconomic equality – was introduced in legislation in Australia in the 1907 *Excise Tariff Act* but not defined until *Ex parte H.V. McKay* – known ubiquitously as the *Harvester case* – was heard later that year at the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, the national workplace relations tribunal.

13 Then-Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard emphasized Australian pride in legislating for a living wage shortly after nationhood, stating in a 2008 speech that the link between the compulsory living wage and the Australian obsession with fairness is inextricable:

> The signature values of nations are often defined by the circumstances of their birth. This is as true for Australia as for other countries. And for us there's one value above all others that we identify with as truly our own. It's the value that emerged out of the circumstances of Federation, which coincided with the industrial turbulence of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That value is fairness. Or as we like to put it: 'the fair go'. It inspired us to establish a society that aimed to give every citizen a decent standard of living. And it led us in 1907 to establish the principle of the living wage. (Gillard, 2008)

14 Gillard is not alone in seeing the implications of the mandated minimum wage as being greater than merely the financial. Former Australian High Court justice Michael Kirby wrote: "We forget the truth when we pretend that the national arbitral tribunal of this country was a mere agency of economics. ... it has been an agency of something more important - industrial equity, a 'fair go all round' or, as many would now describe it, human rights -" (Kirby, 2004) and, one could add, of human dignity, and therefore of subjective wellbeing. Moreover, a former dean of law at The University of Sydney, Ron McCallum, believes that "the establishment of wage rates on a national basis ... contribute (d) to increases in our national productivity on a reasonably egalitarian basis, which helped in the welding together of our nation" (McCallum, 2005).

15 One result of this in the fairly recent aftermath of *Harvester* was Australia's distinctive participation in the First World War. Lacking military conscription – unlike the UK, Canada, New Zealand and the United States – Australia, with a population of fewer than five million, sent 416,809 volunteers to fight on the other side of the world, of whom more than 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner. This horrific toll sealed the Australian identity definitively, more so than the *Harvester* case did, yet it is
interesting to consider what the national mood must have been in the first 15 years of the
twentieth century; one of pride, solidarity, of being 'all in it together', both when the
*Harvester* case was heard and when war was declared, and of a young nation being truly
'welded together'.

16 Henry Bourne Higgins, president of the **Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration** in 1907, was a man of his times. Though a Protestant, he was deeply influenced by Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical *Rerum Novarum*, or *Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor*, which discussed the relationships and mutual duties between labor and capital and established the notion of 'the dignity of labor' in Catholic social thought. The correlation between dignity – perhaps the very opposite to the feeling of 'shame' dogging the poor surveyed by Wilkinson and Pickett – and decent wages was emphasized sharply by Higgins in a 1915 article he wrote for the *Harvard Law Review*: "No employer is entitled to purchase by wages the right to endanger life or to treat men as pigs" (Higgins, 1915).

17 It bears repeating that Higgins sought to identify and enforce not just a minimum wage but a "fair and reasonable" one. He thought that bargaining as a means of obtaining this was not feasible, given the asymmetry in power between employer and employee. In *Harvester*, he cited an English case, *re Stuart* [1893] 2 Q.B. 201, to state that:

> I cannot think that an employer and a workman contract on an equal footing, or make a 'fair' agreement as to wages, when the workman submits to work for a low wage to avoid starvation or pauperism (or something like it) for himself and his family; or that the agreement is "reasonable" if it does not carry a wage sufficient to insure the food, shelter, clothing, frugal comfort, provision for evil days, etc, as well as reward for the special skill of an artisan if he is one (Higgins, 1907).

18 His ruling is remarkable for its meticulousness and its grounding in sworn evidence. Higgins set about assessing what a "fair and reasonable" level of remuneration would be both by abstract reasoning and by collecting solid evidence. His reasoning, quoted here at length, led to the bolded conclusion:

> The provision for fair and reasonable remuneration is obviously designed for the benefit of the employees in the industry; and it must be meant to secure to them something which they cannot get by the ordinary system of individual bargaining with employers. If Parliament meant that the conditions shall be such as they can get by individual bargaining- if it meant that those conditions are to be fair and reasonable ... there would have been no need for this provision. The remuneration could safely have been left to the usual, but unequal contest ... for labour, with the pressure for bread on one side, and the pressure for profits on the other. **The standard of 'fair and reasonable' must, therefore, be something else; and I cannot think of any other standard appropriate than the normal needs of the average employee, regarded as a human being living in a civilised community (Higgins, 1907).**

19 Having defined his criterion, Higgins went on to ascertain whether the wages of McKay's employees, with no overtime or "constancy of employment" was a fair and reasonable sum that met the benchmark. Higgins accepted the evidence led by "nine housekeeping women" that the average weekly expenditure for a labourer's home of about five persons seemed to be about £1 12s. 5d. In this calculation, Higgins included only rent, groceries, bread, meat, milk, fuel, vegetables, and fruit. He went on to emphasize:
This expenditure does not cover light, clothes, boots, furniture, utensils (being casual, not weekly expenditure) rates, life insurance, savings, accident or benefit societies, loss employment, union pay, books and newspapers, tram and train fares, sewing machine, mangle, school requisites, amusements and holidays, intoxicating liquors, tobacco, sickness and death, domestic help, or any expenditure for unusual contingencies, religion, or charity. If the wages are 36s. per week, the amount left to pay for all these things is only 3s. 7d.; and the area is rather large for 3s. 7d to cover - even in the case of total abstainers and non-smokers (Higgins, 1907).

20 Higgins also cannily appealed to employers' self-interest, noting that an underfed, underpaid workforce was not in the employer's interest, writing that:

> One witness, the wife of one who was formerly a vatman in candle works, says that in the days when her husband was working at the vat at 36s. a week, she was unable to provide meat for him about three days in the week. This inability to procure sustaining food - whatever kind may be selected - is certainly not conducive to the maintenance of the worker in industrial efficiency (Higgins, 1907).

21 If Higgins was appealing to employers' self-interest, it was perhaps because he had no illusions about their priorities:

> The employer can displace men by introducing machinery as he chooses. He can make the work as monotonous and as mind-stupefying as he thinks to be for his advantage. He has an absolute power of choice of men and of dismissal. He is allowed ... to make any profits that he can. But when he comes, in the course of his economies, to economise at the expense of human life, when his economy involves the withholding from his employees reasonable remuneration, or reasonable conditions of human existence, then, as I understand the Act, Parliament insists on the payment of Excise duty (Higgins, 1907).

22 After hearing evidence and using his criterion of "the normal needs of the average employee, regarded as a human being living in a civilised community", Higgins decided that the wages being paid to the McKay employees were insufficient, and that seven shillings a day, or 42 shillings a week, was a "fair and reasonable" wage for an unskilled labourer with a wife and three children to support. This was an increase of 27 percent to the pay of the unskilled labourer then employed by McKay.

23 By the 1920s, this living wage applied to over half of the Australian workforce. It became known as the 'basic wage' or a 'family wage', the assumption being that the sole breadwinner in the family was the husband. As Higgins wrote in the *Harvard Law Review*: "Treating marriage as the usual fate of adult men, a wage which does not allow of the matrimonial condition and the maintenance of about five persons in a home, would not be treated as a living wage" (Higgins, 1915).

24 Higgins, an idealist without illusions, wrote in the *Harvard Law Review* that: "Give (workers) relief from their materialistic anxiety; give them reasonable certainty that their essential material needs will be met by honest work, and you release infinite stores of human energy for higher efforts, for nobler ideals" (Higgins, 1915). More than a century before David Cameron made his 2010 House of Commons speech about the 'Big Society' and distinguished GDP from "what really matters" (Cameron, 2010), Henry
Bourne Higgins had decided that all Australians must, by law, be paid a living wage that would enable and empower them to pursue “higher efforts”.

## 3. Legislating for Road Safety

25 "‘Safety’ is an Australian fixation", observes William Coleman of the ANU's College of Business and Economics (Coleman, 2016). Safety and public measures to ensure both objective and subjective wellbeing in Australia are not limited to public awareness campaigns or sloganeering, but rather, mandated by law in a way that might seem heavy-handed in other Anglosphere jurisdictions. Once again, we can detect the Australian predilection for utilitarianism over individual rights.

26 First, let us define safety as a state of not being in danger or at risk. Its importance to objective wellbeing hardly needs elucidating. But it also matters to subjective wellbeing, and not just because death or injury caused by neglect or accident cause incalculable psychological suffering to victims and their loved ones. The AUWI features "how safe you feel" as one of its seven indicators of personal wellbeing and 2016's *The Victorian happiness report: the subjective wellbeing of Victorians* takes as a criterion of its evaluation of subjective wellbeing whether people feel safe walking alone down a street at night, considering this an element of social capital (Victoria State Government, 2016). Finally, in 2018, the South African consultancy New World Wealth ranked Australia as the safest country in the world for women (NWWealth, 2018). Australians will generally accept reasonable restrictions on their autonomy if a higher purpose – in this case, safety – is being served. For examples of this, we will move from the living wage litigation of the nation's early days to the latter third of the twentieth century. This is not to say that the country did not evolve during that time. One clear development was the advent of multiculturalism, triggered by the end of the Second World War. A federal Immigration portfolio was established in 1945 and negotiated agreements with Britain, some European countries and with the International Refugee Organization to encourage migrants, including displaced persons from war-shattered Europe. The result is that 'Australia has a higher proportion of people born overseas (26 per cent) than other high-immigration nations, including New Zealand (23 per cent), Canada (22 per cent), the United States (14 per cent), and the United Kingdom (13 per cent).' (SBS, 2017).

27 While post-war developments changed the ‘face’ of Australia, the ideals of building a better, more inclusive, fairer and safer society did not. An interesting and emblematic fact is that in 1970 the state of Victoria was the first jurisdiction in the world to mandate the use of seat belts by all vehicle passengers. The law took effect nationally in 1972. The comparable year for the UK is 1991. In Canada, Ontario led the way in 1976, with other provinces and territories following at their leisure, some waiting until 1991.

28 Similarly, random breath testing (RBT) of drivers for alcohol was introduced in Victoria in 1976 and went national in 1985. Refusing to be breath-tested is a criminal offence, punished with greater severity than testing over the limit. According to research gathered and analysed by the Australian Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE), "Australia is deemed to have the most successful RBT program internationally, measured in terms of alcohol-related traffic crash (ARTC) reductions," (Erke, Goldenbeld, & Vaa, 2009). Perhaps partly for this reason, fully 96 percent of the population supports it (Petroulias, 2011). The present author's personal experience supports this finding. Australians willingly tolerate the trifling inconvenience of being breath-tested roadside
since the enforcement of RBT demonstrably saves lives; few would see it as a violation of their rights. It is simply “a part of everyday life” (ABC News, 2017). There is even a popular reality TV show, produced in cooperation with the police, depicting people who have agreed to be filmed while being tested. A success with the viewing public, the show has been running since 2010.

29 The early and ready acceptance of mandatory RBT in Australia stands in contrast to the UK, where it does not exist, Canada (where it was introduced as late as 2018) and those US states that have not introduced it. New Zealand enacted compulsory breath testing legislation in 1993. It is in keeping with McAllister’s diagnosis of the country’s utilitarian political culture; Australians readily accept the ‘sacrifice’ of submitting to potential RBT while driving in return for safer roads and reduced loss of life.

## 4. Gun Control for a Better and Safer Australia

30 The mass shooting at Port Arthur, Tasmania, was the deadliest in Australia's history. It left 35 killed and 23 wounded. When the massacre took place, on 28 April 1996, John Howard had been prime minister for about six weeks after 13 years of Labor governments. However, he acted effectively, swiftly and decisively to negotiate a National Firearms Agreement which enjoyed bipartisan support and was implemented by all the state and territory governments.

31 In response to the Port Arthur massacre, Howard convened a special meeting on 10 May of the Australasian Police Ministers' Council (APMC) at which all Australia's states and territories agreed to implement stringent and uniform firearms laws. (In Australia, the regulation of firearms is the responsibility of the state and territory governments, not the federal government.)

32 “Port Arthur was our Sandy Hook.... Port Arthur we acted on. The USA is not prepared to act on their tragedies,” (Fischer, 2016) opined Tim Fischer, one of the most conservative politicians in Australia, 20 years after the massacre, which occurred when he was deputy prime minister. (Glover, 2017).

33 Fischer here was signalling not just Australian pragmatism but also the utilitarian ethos McAllister ascribes to the Australian polity and society. Indisputably, gun control promotes objective wellbeing. A rigorous statistical study published in the *Journal of the American Medical Association* (JAMA) concluded that the ban was associated with reductions in mass shootings and total firearms deaths. (JAMA, 2016). There have been no mass shootings in Australia since 1996. In addition, noted the lead author of the study, Professor Simon Chapman, “[w]e’ve shown that a major policy intervention designed to stop mass shootings has had an effect on other gun-related deaths as well”, given the reduction in suicides and all types of homicides (not just mass killings) by firearms since 1996 (Chapman, 2016). Indeed, the OECD Better Life Index reports that “Australia's homicide rate is 1.0, lower than the OECD average of 3.6.” (OECD, 2017).

34 Given this link to personal safety it is argued that subjective wellbeing will also increase if the use of firearms is controlled. As stated above, the AUWI features “how safe you feel” as one of its seven indicators of personal wellbeing. Drawing on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the 2018 *World Happiness Report* states that safety is a vital condition for happiness (*World Happiness Report*, 2018). In the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, Howard's campaigning was relentless. He produced polling that showed that his reforms had a 90
percent support rate among the Australian public. In addition to this positive persuasion, Howard was prepared to wield a ‘stick’. If the states did not fall into line, he threatened to hold a referendum and seize power for firearm registration from the states.

35

"If you have political capital, you can be certain of one thing: it will disappear. You don't keep political capital for very long. You either see it disappear through inaction, or you spend it on a good cause," (Howard, 2016), Howard reflected 20 years after the event. That Howard, a conservative's conservative, was prepared to spend the political capital he enjoyed soon after his election on gun control, as well as the fact that he enjoyed bipartisan and popular support, is another indicator of Australians' readiness to sacrifice, to a certain extent, individual rights and freedoms for the greater good.

36

Persuading the states to enact uniform firearms control legislation was one challenge. The next was passing legislation at the federal level to make possible the 'buy-back' of firearms, the incentive for gun owners to surrender their weapons. In the end, 650,000 firearms were surrendered and melted down, at a cost of $350 million.

37

Howard raised the funds by a short-term increase of 0.2% in the national Medicare Levy, the tax that funds Australia's national health system. At his Second Reading Speech of the Medicare Levy Amendment Bill 1996, Howard, the first elected Australian prime minister to identify himself as a conservative (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2007) stated: "I do not enjoy for one moment imposing this degree of additional regulation and inconvenience" (Howard, 1996). This was completely in keeping with his belief in small government and with his conviction that his party "must always be seen as the party of individual freedom and personal rights," (Howard, 1996).

38

Yet Howard was no challenger of the Australian ethos that, within reason, the greater good must prevail over individual wishes and liberties. As he said in his Second Reading Speech:

> It is a matter of honest regret that taxpayers need to meet this cost, and that law-abiding gun owners need to surrender guns which they have found useful to them in one way or another .... But, **when the whole of the matter is weighed, there is a greater good to be served in taking such comprehensive measures** .... These historic measures are designed to avoid any slide into a gun culture in this country. ... **It is our obligation to build a better and safer community for all Australians.** (Howard, 1996).
> (Emphasis added.)

39

Twenty years later, in a series of interviews about Port Arthur and its legislative aftermath, as well as the reduction of firearms-related deaths in Australia, Howard rejected the idea that the US, with its Second Amendment (Bill of Rights, 1791) obsession, could follow the Australian example to reduce the toll that gun deaths and shootings take in that country:

> [T]he last thing I want to do is pretend the culture and the circumstances in America and Australia are the same. (In the US) gun possession is seen, wrongly in my view and historically erroneously, as being some kind of fundamental right of the individual. The original intention was the right to maintain state militias. (However), I thought "(f)or heaven's sake, what's the point of being in office when you can't do something significant in relation to something that affects community safety?" (Howard, 2016).
40 Incidentally, John Howard's interpretation of the text is far from controversial. For most of last century, the United States Supreme Court and federal courts held that it only applied in the context of militias, the right of states to protect themselves from federal interference and was not an individual's right (Yuhas, 2017).

## 5. Wellbeing Versus Intellectual Property Rights in the War on Smoking

41 The link between health /objective wellbeing and tobacco consumption requires no elaboration, and it is surely self-evident that the benefits to health and longevity that abstention brings will also promote the happiness of the ex-smoker's loved ones.

42 In terms of subjective wellbeing (SWB) recent research published in *The BMJ* found

no evidence that the change in SWB of those who quit smoking under stricter tobacco control policies is different from those who quit under a more relaxed regulatory environment. Furthermore, our cross-sectional estimates suggest that the increase in SWB from quitting smoking is statistically significant and also of a meaningful magnitude (Weinhold and Chaloupka, 2017).

43 Through legislation and litigation both domestically and abroad, the Australian government has done everything it feasibly can to discourage smoking. Since 1 December 2012, all tobacco products sold, offered for sale, or otherwise supplied in Australia must be contained in 'plain packaging'. There are no longer any Marlboro Men or luxury-looking Benson and Hedges packets to be seen, a sea change from the previous situation, when cigarettes were sold in branded packaging but plastered with health warnings. Cigarette packs sold in Australia now feature images of gangrenous limbs, cancerous lungs and broken, rotting teeth. This is in keeping with subsection (2) of the *Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011* (Cth), (the TPP Act), which states that:

(2) It is the intention of the Parliament to contribute to achieving the objects in subsection (1) by regulating the retail packaging and appearance of tobacco products in order to:

(a) reduce the appeal of tobacco products to consumers; and

(b) increase the effectiveness of health warnings on the retail packaging of tobacco products; and

(c) reduce the ability of the retail packaging of tobacco products to mislead consumers about the harmful effects of smoking or using tobacco products.

44 As was the case with the gun buy-back and associated Medicare levy, the legislation effecting this pioneering approach to the deterrence of tobacco consumption was supported by all the main political parties. *The Sydney Morning Herald* reported in May 2011 that

New laws to sell cigarettes in plain packets are set to pass parliament after the coalition swung behind the Gillard government move.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the coalition would not oppose the laws when they were presented to parliament later this year, but would propose a number of amendments. However, if the amendments - which Mr Abbott did not spell out in detail - were not carried, coalition MPs would allow the bill to pass. (*The Sydney Morning Herald*, 2011).
45 The bill passed the House of Representatives in August 2011, supported by “both major parties” (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2011). It passed the Senate in November of that year. Even those who spoke and voted against it, such as opposition whip John Williams, stated: “I do hope that this does reduce smoking but I also hope that it does not cost the nation billions and billions of dollars. And I do hope the government have their legal advice correct.” (Williams, 2011).

46 Section 3(1)(a) of the TPP Act is very clear about its purpose: “The objects of this Act are: (a) to improve public health...” The aggressiveness of the Australian legislation to discourage tobacco consumption inspired politicians in other Anglosphere countries and encouraged other jurisdictions to follow suit (Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York hailed the Australian Attorney-General as “a rock star” for her efforts) (Bloomberg, 2012).

47 A 2016 post-implementation review (PIR) by the Australian Department of Health stated that “[w]hile the full effect of the tobacco plain packaging measure is expected to be realised over time, the evidence examined in this PIR suggests that the measure is achieving its aims” (Australian Government Department of Health, 2016) and that “[t]he body of experimental, behavioural and other studies into the effects of the tobacco plain packaging measure shows that it is having a positive impact on the three specific mechanisms of reducing the appeal of tobacco products, increasing the effectiveness of health warnings, and reducing the ability of the pack to mislead.”

48 Once again, Australia led the world in using the law to bring about wellbeing, and the world noticed. Following Australia's lead, a number of other countries now also require plain packaging: France (for cigarettes sold after January 2017), UK (May 2017), New Zealand (June 2018), Norway (July 2018), Ireland (September 2018) and Hungary (planned for January 2022). Matthew Rimmer, writing in the magazine of the World Intellectual Property Organization, noted that the World Health Organization

> welcomed the landmark ruling and called upon the “rest of the world to follow Australia’s tough stance on tobacco marketing” which is fully in line with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The Director-General of the WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, said that the ruling would encourage other countries to implement tobacco control measures, such as the plain packaging of tobacco products, noting, “with Australia’s victory, public health enters a brave new world of tobacco control. Plain packaging is a highly effective way to counter industry’s ruthless marketing tactics.”
> (Rimmer, 2013).

49 Not unexpectedly, the tobacco industry mounted a challenge. In response to the 2011 legislation, British American Tobacco (BAT) and JT International SA filed suit against the Government of Australia in the nation's High Court (its supreme court). The tobacco giants alleged breach of the Australian *Constitution*, specifically, section 51 *xxxi* which concerns “the acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person for any purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to make laws”, claiming that their intellectual property, specifically, copyright, design, goodwill, trademarks and trade dress such as arrangements of words, colours, designs, logos, lettering and markings had been expropriated.

50 By a majority of six to one, the High Court rejected the tobacco companies' arguments that there had been an acquisition of property under the Australian *Constitution*. The
majority judges variously described the case of the tobacco companies as “delusive”, “synthetic”, “unreal”, and suffering “fatal” defects in logic and reasoning.

51 Then-Chief Justice Robert French quoted academic literature to point out that: “Intellectual property is ... a purely negative right, and this concept is very important. Thus, if someone owns the copyright in a film he can stop others from showing it in public but it does not in the least follow that he has the positive right to show it himself.” The Chief Justice went on to point out that “BAT correctly submitted that rights to exclude others from using property have no substance if all use of the property is prohibited”. Accordingly, he opined:

> There is ... an important distinction between taking of property and its acquisition. Taking involves deprivation of property seen from the perspective of its owner. Acquisition involves receipt of something seen from the perspective of the acquirer. Acquisition is therefore not made out by mere extinguishment of rights....On no view can it be said that the Commonwealth as a polity or by any authority or instrumentality, has acquired any benefit of a proprietary character by reason of the operation of the TPP Act on the plaintiffs' property rights. (French, 2012).

52 Current Chief Justice Susan Kiefel noted:

> The (TPP Act) and ... Regulations, in conjunction with the 2004 and 2011 Information Standards, may be a rare form of regulation of the packaging of a harmful product, in that they require those distributing a product to place warnings on the product's packaging which might dissuade persons from using the product at all. However, the plaintiffs did not seek to argue that the measures were not appropriate to achieve the statutory objectives or disproportionate to them, or that the legislation was enacted for purposes other than those relating to public health. In the end result, their argument was only that the possible achievement of the statutory objectives of the (TPP Act) was sufficient to amount to an acquisition for the purposes of s 51 (xxxi). It is possible that there be a statutory objective of acquiring property, as there was in the *Bank Nationalisation Case*, but there is no such purpose evident in the present case. The central statutory object of the (TPP Act) is to dissuade persons from using tobacco products. If that object were to be effective, the plaintiffs' businesses may be harmed, but the Commonwealth does not thereby acquire something in the nature of property itself. (Kiefel, 2012).

53 The single dissent, from Justice Heydon, was by no means laudatory to the purposes and existence of the tobacco companies, which he accused of trafficking in “lies and death” (Heydon, 2012).

54 Having lost its case at Australia's High Court, Philip Morris turned to the International Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, claiming that the TPP breached Australia's Bilateral Investment Treaty with Hong Kong. The tobacco company's failure was spectacular, as not only did the PCA rule against Philip Morris, it also ordered the company to pay Australia compensation of tens of millions of dollars, possibly $50 million (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2017).

55 Finally, in June 2018, the World Trade Organization's panel of judges ruled in Australia's favour, rejecting arguments brought by Cuba, Indonesia, Honduras and the Dominican Republic that the TPP Act infringed tobacco trademarks and violated intellectual property rights (World Trade Organization, 2018).
6. Legislation in Favour of Well-Being and the Compulsory Vote

56 Australians generally accept restrictions on their autonomy if a higher purpose is being served, to a degree that would often be unacceptable in comparable Anglophone jurisdictions. It is tempting and by no means illogical to link their acquiescence to the mandatory vote specific to Australia in the Anglosphere.

57 Although it became compulsory for both non-Indigenous Australians, both male and female, to enrol to vote before the First World War, a decline in voluntary voter turnout from more than 71% at the previous 1919 election to less than 60% at the 1922 elections was the catalyst for legislation to make voting at the federal level mandatory. From the start, it was non-controversial:

> On 17 July 1924 a Private Member's Bill ... was debated in the Senate. Five Senators spoke on the Bill and it was passed that day. In the House of Representatives only three members spoke. Significantly, for such a piece of far-reaching legislation, Mr Tony Smith MP, noted that there were only a few speakers on each side and it went through on the voices. (Parliament of Australia).

58 The States and Territories comprising the federation then enacted bills making voting compulsory at their level of government. Voting at the local council level and in referenda is also compulsory.

59 The compulsory vote promotes an attitude that everyone has their say and that eventually the greatest good for the greatest number does prevail. A causal link between the compulsory vote and the propensity of the Australians to accept some degree of restriction on their autonomy is impossible to prove, but indications exist that support at least a correlation.

60 When former US President Barack Obama praised Australia's compulsory voting system in a 2016 speech at the University of Chicago Law School, he called it "transformative", noting how it would counteract the all-too-powerful influence of "big money" in the US electoral process. (Tovey, 2016). Obama highlighted the 2014 findings of the Pew Research Center, which found that the millions who refuse to participate in American elections are younger, more diverse and less affluent than those who do vote. This skews policymaking in favour of the affluent. To take just one example, "more nonvoters say that government aid to the poor does more good than harm than say the opposite (51% vs. 43%). Likely voters, by 52% to 43%, say that government aid to the poor does more harm than good". (Pew Research Center, 2014). Along the same lines, a BBC report from 2013 canvassed the issue and quoted Rohan Wenn, of a non-partisan advocacy group: "(In other countries) the people who don't vote are the poor and disenfranchised, and those are exactly the people we think should be voting" (Wenn, 2013).

61 The Australian Political Science Professor Ian McAllister posits that the high voting turnout caused by compulsory voting may increase overall satisfaction with the political system. (McAllister, 2016). Yet the UK-born McAllister does not believe that compulsory voting would work elsewhere in the Anglosphere, owing to the uniquely Australian utilitarian social and political mindset. Similarly, Professor Lisa Hill states: "our system of compulsion creates a particularly equitable democracy, where all eligible citizens have an
equal say in the outcome ... in Australia voting is not simply a privilege, it is also a duty”
(Hill, 2012). Supporting Hill’s contention that the system enjoys broad backing, an article
in *The Conversation*, an Australian academic publication offering public affairs
commentary, stated:

[M]any experts consider Australia's electoral system to be one of the finest in
the world. The majority of Australians apparently share this view: 70%
approve of compulsory voting.

For decades, compulsory voting has done what it was supposed to do: maintain high and socially even turnout levels that are the envy of the industrialised voluntary-voting world. Prior to its introduction at the federal level in 1924, turnout was hovering in the 50-60% range (of registered voters). Since then, it has remained steady for many decades at around 93%.

The system is easily accessible, well-managed and, despite some rare but highly publicised cases, controversy-free. Without compulsory voting, turnout would be considerably lower at around 55-60% of the eligible population, mimicking similar democracies such as the US or Canada.

Switching to a voluntary system ... would plunge Australian democracy into
the same crisis of citizenship that democracies everywhere in the voluntary-
voting world are going through: that is, the rapid decline into gerontocracy
as voters - especially young people - turn their backs on voting in droves.

(The Conversation, 2015).

62 The Australian parliament has a Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters whose role is to enquire into matters relating to electoral laws and practices and their administration. Accordingly, it reports on the conduct of federal elections, reports of irregularities in state elections, trials of electronic voting systems, and electoral funding. There has been no governmental or popular desire of sufficient import for it to examine the benefits and disadvantages of compulsory voting.

63 Australians travel widely and are subjected to British and U.S. media from childhood. They appear unconvinced that their lives would be better in the larger Anglophone countries. Thanks to the ‘unicorn’ E3 visa, Australian citizens enjoy the right to work professionally in the United States without the paperwork and hurdles faced by citizens of every other country. Yet this unique privilege has limited interest for Australians: in 2017, half the quota of E3 visas went unused. (Knott, 2018). While many Australians use ancestral passports or working holiday visas to spend time in Britain, the relatively low wages offered in the UK, and the knowledge that traditionally, Britons have sought a better life in the New World, act as impediments to any notion that the UK offers a higher standard of living or quality of life.

64 *The Economist* gave its imprimatur to the Australian way of life and the political centrism promoted by the compulsory vote in late 2018 (emphasis added):

Rising incomes, low public debt, an affordable welfare state, popular support for mass immigration and a **broad consensus on the policies underlying these things**- that is a distant dream in most rich countries. Many Western politicians could scarcely imagine a place that combined them all. Happily they do not need to, because such a country already exists: Australia.... **Australia's political system rewards centrism. All eligible citizens must vote,** by law..... The system of preferential voting, whereby Australians rank candidates in order of choice, rather than picking just one, also exerts a moderating influence. (*The Economist*, 2018).
## 7. The Potential Disadvantages of the Benthamite, Utilitarian Approach

65 Do individuals and their rights suffer in a culture that promotes the greatest good for the greatest number? Surely it is worthy of note that Australia lacks a constitutionally-anchored, stand-alone Bill of Rights, in contrast to the *Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms*, for example, or the U.S., New Zealand, English Bills of Rights or the UK Human Rights Act?

66 Perhaps this fact is all the more ironic given that it was an Australian, Herbert Vere ('Doc') Evatt, in his capacity as President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, who presided over the adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

67 It would be a mistake, however, to think that individual rights are slighted despite the lack of a Constitutional guarantee. This century, Victoria enacted the *Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006*, and every law passed in Victoria must be compatible with the Charter. (State of Victoria, 2019). Similarly, the Australian Capital Territory passed its *Human Rights Act* in 2004. Both pieces of legislation were influenced by the Canadian, New Zealand and UK examples, though not that of the U.S. (Stephenson, 2017). In general terms, they reflect the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

68 The Australian Constitution guarantees certain rights, such as freedom from a state religion and freedom of conscience. Before its enactment by the Westminster parliament, residents of the Australian colonies already enjoyed the rights and protections laid out in the 1688 English Bill of Rights and Magna Carta, as well as the heritage of common law. Like Canada, New Zealand and the UK, Australia also ratified and implemented into domestic legislation seven of the key international human rights treaties. The tally for the USA is four.

## 8. Conclusion

69 Australia's efforts in legislating safety and wellbeing began soon after Federation in 1901. The *Harvester* litigation of 1907 mandated a living wage for all workers, however the employer was faring financially. President Higgins rejected any notion of profit-sharing, saying that the remuneration was to be paid whether the profits were nil or 99.9 percent. He was adamant that the living wage was necessary not just to achieve a basic standard of material wellbeing, but also to promote dignity, equity, and a civilised society, which today we might consider as inseparable from subjective wellbeing.

70 Australia has been earlier than other Anglosphere jurisdictions to use the law to mandate such measures as the wearing of seatbelts and random breath testing.

71 Although Australia has led the way internationally in promoting the reduction of tobacco use through plain packaging legislation and litigation, other jurisdictions, in the Anglosphere and elsewhere, have emulated this approach. It is perhaps easier for those nations lacking the utilitarian political ethos to do so as smoking, unlike fair wages, gun
control and road safety, can only be discouraged, not controlled, through legislation and
litigation. No-one thinks a prohibition on tobacco would be practicable.

72

Australia's Benthamite, utilitarian political culture means that citizens expect the state to promote the greatest good for the greatest number, and the law is used as the tool to regulate Australian society across a number of spheres and in a number of ways. It is reasonable to conclude – though hard to prove – that the compulsory vote, unique in the Anglosphere, promotes the feeling of everyone having a stake in the polity and of legislation truly reflecting the will of the majority.

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## NOTES

1. The five Anglophone/Anglosphere/predominantly English-speaking countries that constitute the close-knit 'Five Eyes' intelligence pact. All are OECD member states that share a common-law heritage and all except the UK are 'New World' countries. It is these
commonalities that make comparisons and differences useful and interesting.) This paper
also aims to shed light on the belief that '[i]f there is one characteristic that separates
Australians from much of the world, it's that belief we are on a mission to create a truly great
society'. (Downer, 2019)

ABSTRACTS

From the time of the nation's federation and independence, in 1901, Australian authorities have concerned themselves with the wellbeing, through the health and the social justice of the citizenry. It is interesting to keep in mind that Australia, uniquely in the Anglosphere, has the compulsory vote, and not just in federal elections. Citizens who fail to vote in state government and local government council elections are also fined. As early as 1907, the young nation mandated a universal minimum wage, a wage sufficient to meet the needs of a person living in a 'civilised society'. The nation continued to evolve under the influence of these notions of solidarity and civic-mindedness. Signs of these values are noticeable in a number of laws and lawsuits relating to wellbeing in Australia. One example is the fact that the state of Victoria was the first jurisdiction in the world to mandate the wearing of a seatbelt by every person in a motor vehicle. Similarly, Australia was a pioneer in random breath testing of drivers. Towards the end of the twentieth century, in the wake of a massacre in Tasmania, Australia quickly and effectively passed laws making firearms illegal in most circumstances. This century, it was the first country in the world to ban trademarks, attractive images and colours from cigarette cartons. It is telling that, far from resenting these laws, which people in other countries might consider meddlesome or intrusive, the vast majority of Australians welcome them, as they tend to value equality and solidarity over individual rights. Given this societal context, citizens appreciate governmental efforts to promote their wellbeing.

Les autorités australiennes se sont intéressées au bien-être des citoyens, à travers la santé ainsi que la justice sociale, depuis l'indépendance de la nation en 1901. Il convient de garder à l'esprit que l'Australie est le seul pays anglophone dans lequel le suffrage est obligatoire, et ce à chacun des trois niveaux gouvernementaux: local, fédéral, et national. C'est en 1907 que le pays a fixé un salaire minimum obligatoire national; un salaire qui satisferait les besoins d'une personne vivant dans une 'société civilisée'. Ce sont avec ces notions de solidarité et de civisme que le pays a continué à évoluer. On remarque ce sens du civisme en Australie lorsque l'on examine certains litiges et lois relatifs au bien-être. Par exemple, ce fut l'État du Victoria qui fut la première juridiction du monde à rendre obligatoire le port de la ceinture de sécurité par chacun des passagers d'une voiture. De même, l'Australie a initié les contrôles aléatoires d'ivresse au volant. Vers la fin du 20e siècle, suite à un massacre en Tasmanie, l'Australie a promulgué avec rapidité et efficacité l'interdiction des armes à feu dans la plupart des circonstances. Il y a moins de 10 ans, c'était le premier pays à interdire l'utilisation des marques et/ou de couleurs et images attractives sur les paquets de cigarettes. Il est important de noter que la plupart des Australiens apprécient ces lois, qui seraient considérées comme 'envahissantes' des libertés dans bien d'autres pays. Les Australiens attachent plus de prix à l'égalité et à la fraternité. Dans un tel cadre social, la promotion du bien-être du citoyen est appréciée.
# INDEX

**Mots-clés:** Australie, civisme, bien-être, litiges, lois, sécurité, santé, anglophone

**Keywords:** Australia, civic-mindedness, wellbeing, lawsuits, laws, safety, health, Anglophone/Anglopshere

# AUTHOR

BRONWEN CLAIRE EWENS

bcewens@gmail.com
# Politique du logement et bien-être en Angleterre : perspective historique et réflexions sur la situation contemporaine

*Housing Policy and Well-Being in England: Historical Perspective and Analysis of the 2018 Situation*

David Fée

## 1. Introduction

<footnote n="1">¹ Le logement est inscrit dans la Déclaration universelle des droits de l'Homme (Assemblée Générale des Nations Unies, 1948 : §25.1),¹ car il est nécessaire au bien-être de l'Homme à plusieurs titres : en tant qu'abri, il est indispensable pour satisfaire certains besoins humains physiques fondamentaux (dormir, se protéger des éléments, etc.) ; en tant qu'habitat, de par sa dimension ontologique, il permet d'assurer un sentiment de sécurité et d'intimité ; en outre, en tant que domicile, il permet de tisser des relations sociales, car il s'inscrit dans un environnement plus large, la rue ou le quartier. Enfin, en tant que marchandise, il influe sur la situation économique et financière d'un foyer (Y. Fijalkow, 2011). Partant, le mal-logement² peut être considéré comme un obstacle au bien-être objectif et subjectif, car il rejaillit sur le développement d'un individu, sa participation et son insertion sociale, voire son niveau de vie ou sa santé.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Les liens entre logement et bien-être et l'influence du logement sur les autres politiques publiques sont reconnus depuis longtemps au Royaume-Uni et ont fait l'objet de nombreuses études et évaluations. Ainsi en est-il de la relation logement-éducation. Il est prouvé que de mauvaises conditions de logement rejaillissent de multiples façons sur les résultats scolaires : le mal-logement, lorsqu'il est synonyme de surpeuplement (*overcrowding*), induit un manque d'intimité, du bruit, un manque de sommeil, une fatigue et donc une baisse d'attention en milieu scolaire (Shelter, 2006). Lorsqu'il signifie des</footnote>
conditions de vie dégradées comme l'humidité ou le froid, il conduit à la maladie et donc l'absentéisme (J. Giggs et al., 2008: 11).

3. De même, logement et santé sont étroitement liés, bien qu'il soit difficile de démêler les différents facteurs impliqués et de séparer le logement de son environnement plus large. Un exemple extrême réside dans le nombre de décès supplémentaires liés au froid durant un hiver rigoureux (M. Marmot, 2010: 80). S'il ne débouche pas toujours sur un décès, le mal-logement induit des effets négatifs sur la santé : asthme, autres maladies respiratoires, cardiovasculaires, etc. (P. Howden-Chapman et al., 2007). En outre, de nombreuses études pointent les liens entre l'aspect physique d'un logement et la santé mentale des résidents (G. Evans et al., 2003). Enfin, dans une dernière acceptation, lorsque le mal-logement est synonyme d'absence de logement, il est lié à des taux supérieurs de dépendance et de troubles mentaux (S. Fazel et al., 2008).

4. Ce chapitre s'attachera donc à examiner, dans un premier temps, comment le logement s'est imposé dans l'évaluation du bien-être des Anglais, subjectif et objectif (en termes de satisfaction d'une part et de conditions matérielles évaluées selon des normes nationales, d'autre part)³. Dans un deuxième temps, dans une perspective historique, nous nous concentrerons sur l'action publique : nous nous attacherons à montrer comment les pouvoirs publics ont cherché ou non à répondre à la question du bien-être (sans toutefois recourir à ce concept jusqu'à une date récente), par le biais d'une politique publique du logement. Les choix effectués après 2010 seront analysés en détail. Enfin, dans un dernier temps, nous étudierons les conséquences de ces choix politiques et l'évolution, peu propice à l'amélioration du bien-être, du système immobilier anglais. En raison de la décentralisation de la collecte des données statistiques et de la politique du logement depuis 1999, consécutive à la réforme de la gouvernance du Royaume-Uni (devolution), le choix a été fait de se concentrer sur l'Angleterre après 2000⁴.

## 2. Une nouvelle donne : bien-être subjectif et logement en Angleterre

5. C'est assez récemment que le concept de bien-être s'est explicitement invité dans le débat politique au Royaume-Uni. Si de très nombreuses enquêtes s'étaient en effet penchées sur la question de la pauvreté à partir des années 1960⁵, la problématique n'avait pas été posée en termes de bien-être. La Stratégie de développement durable publiée en 1999 par le gouvernement Blair, puis celle de 2005 (DEFRA, 2005), ainsi que la création d'un groupe de travail au sein de l'administration centrale (W3G, Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group) avait marqué un tournant discret dans la réflexion politique au Royaume-Uni en faveur d'un nouvel indicateur (le bien-être), tout en remettant sa définition à plus tard. Cette nouvelle donne avait, par la suite, été officialisée le 25 novembre 2010 lorsque le nouveau Premier ministre, David Cameron, avait annoncé la création du Measuring National Well-being Programme avec à la clef deux millions de livres sterling⁶. David Cameron tenait ainsi un engagement pris dans l'opposition lors de la conférence européenne Google Zeitgeist. En écho au discours de campagne de Robert F. Kennedy de 1968, il y avait déclaré que la vie ne se limitait pas à l'argent et qu'il importait de mesurer autre chose que le PNB (The Guardian, 22.05.2006)⁷. Il importait, dit-il en novembre 2010, de prendre en compte la beauté de l'environnement, la qualité culturelle ainsi que la force des relations humaines (The Conservative Party, 2010)⁸.
6 C'est à cette tâche que l'Office for National Statistics (ONS) au Royaume-Uni s'est attelé en novembre 2010, dans le but de mettre au point un index du bien-être afin de pouvoir en tenir compte dans la formulation des politiques publiques. Après un débat national de cinq mois orchestré par l'ONS, un tableau d'indicateurs fut élaboré et le Measuring National Well-Being Programme débuta. Le programme conduisit l'ONS, à partir d'avril 2011, à recueillir l'opinion de 200 000 Britanniques sur leur vie (Subjective Well-being), sur la base de 43 indicateurs objectifs et subjectifs, dans 10 domaines différents⁹. Parmi ces indicateurs, un seul se rapporte directement au logement et deux indirectement¹⁰ (voir partie 2 ci-dessous). La place limitée qui lui est accordée n'est pas unique à l'ONS et est reflétée par d'autres rapports où le logement n'est pas explicitement mentionné parmi les facteurs influençant le bien-être subjectif, souvent partagés en trois catégories (économiques, sociaux, personnels) (G. O'Donnel et al., 2014: 43). Depuis 2012, l'ONS publie deux rapports par an sur la base de ces indicateurs afin de mesurer l'évolution de la qualité de vie et du bien-être des Britanniques en général (Measuring National Wellbeing : Life in the UK).

7 En parallèle, il fut décidé d'inclure à partir de 2012 dans la *Annual Population Survey* quatre questions sur le bien-être subjectif¹¹ découlant d'approches théoriques différentes : approche évaluative, eudémonique, et expérimentale (ONS, 2015 : 35). En juillet 2011, le ministre des Finances George Osborne a mis à jour le *Green Book*, la directive du Trésor qui conseille l'administration centrale sur la manière d'évaluer les projets et les politiques publiques, afin d'inclure ces mesures dans les analyses économiques traditionnelles (*cost-benefit analysis*).

8 Cette nouvelle donne a eu des conséquences sur la collecte de statistiques dans le domaine du logement. Des données sur le bien-être subjectif sont désormais disponibles dans *The English Housing Survey*, l'enquête nationale sur le logement en Angleterre. Depuis 2013-14, en raison du programme national consacré au bien-être, l'ONS inclut deux indicateurs de bien-être subjectif dans cette enquête nationale (*life satisfaction* et *anxiety*) ainsi que les quatre questions mentionnées précédemment (voir note 10). L'objectif est d'évaluer l'influence du logement sur la minorité des Anglais déclarant être peu satisfaits de leur vie (5 %) et anxieux (21 %) (DCLG, 2014). Il s'agit, pour l'ONS, de corréler l'entretien avec l'échantillon des résidents sondés sur leur sentiment de bien-être avec leurs conditions de vie telles qu'elles sont évaluées par l'enquêteur chargé du sondage. L'évaluation subjective de leurs propres conditions de logement par les résidents interviewés est exclue.

9 Les éditions successives de l'EHS ont révélé que le facteur le plus influant sur le sentiment de bien-être est la situation financière des répondants et plus particulièrement la situation d'arriérés, suivi du statut d'occupation, et du type de logement (DCLG, 2016d). L'édition de 2016 auprès de 13 468 foyers montre que les propriétaires sont ceux qui se déclarent être les plus satisfaits de leur vie et que vivre en appartement ou en maison semi-mitoyenne a une influence négative sur le sentiment de bien-être. Paradoxalement, les conditions de vie telles que le surpeuplement d'un logement, son confort thermique ou le degré d'humidité n'ont guère d'incidence sur les réponses, probablement parce que les perceptions individuelles different des normes gouvernementales. De manière générale, les statistiques de l'ONS montrent que le logement influe peu directement sur le sentiment de bien-être à la différence d'autres facteurs tels que la santé, le revenu, ou l'emploi.
10 Comme il a été dit dans l'introduction, le logement s'inscrit dans l'environnement plus large du quartier. C'est pourquoi l'environnement bâti et le voisinage entrent dans les questions posées lors de l'entretien utilisé par l'ONS pour l'enquête nationale sur le logement. Si une très grande majorité des personnes sondées se déclare satisfaite de son quartier (88 %), se sent en sécurité dans la journée (95 %) et estime que le quartier s'est amélioré ou n'a pas changé (75 %), on peut noter des différences : plus ces personnes appartiennent à un groupe socio-économique élevé, blanc et propriétaire, plus elles sont satisfaites de leur quartier (DCLG, 2016b).

<table><caption>Tableau 1. Logement et bien-être subjectif en Angleterre en 2016</caption><thead><tr><td></td><td>Satisfaits de leur quartier</td><td>Amélioration du quartier</td><td>Déclin du quartier</td><td>En sécurité seul la nuit dehors</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Nord</td><td>87 %</td><td>14 %</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Sud</td><td>88 %</td><td>10 %</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Londres</td><td>89 %</td><td>17 %</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Minorités ethniques</td><td>84 %</td><td>23, 3 %</td><td>22, 7 %</td><td>66, 7 %</td></tr><tr><td>Population blanche</td><td>88 %</td><td>13 %</td><td>24, 8 %</td><td>67, 1 %</td></tr><tr><td>Propriétaires</td><td>90 %</td><td>13 %</td><td>26 %</td><td>70 %</td></tr><tr><td>Locataires du secteur privé</td><td>87 %</td><td>13, 8 %</td><td>17, 5 %</td><td>73 %</td></tr><tr><td>Locataires HLM</td><td>82 %</td><td>19 %</td><td>24 %</td><td>50 %</td></tr><tr><td>16-24 ans</td><td>81, 2 %</td><td>17 %</td><td>13 %</td><td>64 %</td></tr><tr><td>+ 75 ans</td><td>91, 4 %</td><td>9 %</td><td>29, 4 %</td><td>40 %</td></tr><tr><td>-£10 000 brut/an</td><td>84, 1 %</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>+50 000</td><td>92, 5 %</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source : ONS, table FA5342, FA 5363, FA5211

11 Bien que limitées, ces variations reflètent les conditions de logement et la localisation des différents groupes socio-économiques et ethniques en Angleterre et traduisent l'influence indirecte que le logement exerce sur la perception par les Anglais de leur environnement immédiat et sur leur sentiment de bien-être. Elles contribuent aussi à cerner le lien entre sentiment de bien-être et capital social tel qu'il est défini par Robert Putnam (R. Putnam, 2000). Tout porte à croire en effet que la confiance, l'interaction, les réseaux sociaux (le capital social en résumé) sont plus à même de se développer localement là où le sentiment de bien-être et d'appartenance s'exprime et vice versa.

## 3. Logement et bien-être objectif : Une longue tradition d'évaluation

12 Cependant, le bien-être n'est pas seulement subjectif, de l'ordre du sentiment, mais il peut très concrètement se mesurer, dans le cas du logement, à l'aune des statistiques recueillies sur les conditions de vie passées et présentes des Anglais.

13 Dans ce domaine, l'Angleterre peut se prévaloir d'une longue histoire. Dès 1919, la loi sur le logement et l'urbanisme (Housing and Town Planning Act) imposa aux collectivités locales l'obligation d'évaluer leurs besoins en logements, surtout après la définition officielle du surpeuplement (overcrowding) formulée en 1935 dans le Housing Act¹². La collecte de ces informations s'avérant inégales et les collectivités locales étant suspectées de sous-
estimer les problèmes de mal-logement, la première enquête nationale sur le logement (House Conditions Survey of England and Wales) vit le jour en 1967 à la demande du Comité central de conseil pour le logement (Central Housing Advisory Committee). Rebaptisée English Housing Survey (EHS) en 2008-09, après la fusion de The English Housing Conditions Survey et The Survey of English Housing, elle couvrait jusqu'aux années 2000 l'Angleterre et le pays de Galles (puis la première uniquement). Depuis 1976, elle inclut un entretien avec un enquêteur et associe enquête qualitative et quantitative.

14 Ces enquêtes ont eu une incidence indéniable sur les politiques publiques : ainsi, celle de 1967 a conduit à la définition de zones de rénovation de l'habitat (General Improvement Areas) et celle de 1976 à davantage d'aides pour la rénovation des logements antérieurs à 1919 ; après 1991, l'évaluation du pourcentage de foyers en situation de pauvreté énergétique (Fuel Poverty) a conduit à la création du Winter Fuel Payment en 1997 ; de même, entre 2001 et 2010, l'enquête a permis aux pouvoirs publics d'évaluer le succès du Decent Homes Programme ainsi que l'évolution du bien-être matériel des résidents du secteur social (voir plus bas).

15 L'English Housing Survey confirme que les conditions de logement des Anglais ont profondément changé, souvent pour le meilleur. Ainsi, entre 1967 et 1991, le pourcentage des logements anglais ne possédant pas l'un des équipements de base¹³ est passé de 25 % à 1 % (DCLG, 2017a : 12). Quant au pourcentage de logements classés comme indécents (unfit)¹⁴, il est tombé de 12 % à 4 % entre 1967 et 1996. De même, sur la base des nouveaux critères d'évaluation introduits en 2006, il est possible d'établir que le pourcentage des logements présentant un risque de catégorie 1 est passé de 22 % à 12 % du parc anglais entre 2006 et 2015 ; le pourcentage de logements indécents incluant cette nouvelle mesure est tombé, quant à lui, de 35 % à 20 % en 2016. Le froid ayant une incidence majeure sur le nombre de décès chaque hiver en Angleterre, l'EHS a récemment intégré une rubrique sur l'efficacité thermique et l'isolation des logements : il est ainsi possible d'affirmer qu'alors qu'en 1961, le pourcentage des logements isolés était proche de zéro, en 2015, 95 % des logements anglais étaient équipés de double vitrage.

16 L'enquête nationale montre néanmoins la dégradation d'un indice majeur du mal-logement, à savoir le taux de surpeuplement, pour des raisons qui seront examinées plus loin. Alors que ce taux était resté stable entre 1995 et 2015 parmi les propriétaires, il a légèrement augmenté dans le secteur social (passant de 5 % à 7 %) et dans le secteur locatif privé (3 % à 5 %). Le pourcentage varie fortement cependant entre les groupes ethniques et atteignait 30 % des foyers bengalais contre 7 % des foyers chinois en 2015-16 ¹⁵ en raison de la taille différente des familles.

17 En comparaison avec les autres pays de l'OCDE, les conditions de logement dans l'ensemble du Royaume-Uni sont supérieures à la moyenne : selon l'OCDE, à 7 %, le taux de surpeuplement est plus proche de celui des Pays-Bas (2 %) que de celui de la Pologne (48 %) et le pourcentage de la population vivant dans un logement indécent (15 %) est plus proche de celui de la Finlande (5 %) que de celui de la Turquie (42 %) (OECD, 2011 : 81-102).
## 4. Idéologie politique, bien-être et logement sur le temps long : 1890-2010

18 Cette évolution largement positive est le résultat de l'attention accordée à la question du logement (the housing question) par les pouvoirs publics de la fin du 19e siècle au Livre vert de 1977 (DOE, 1977) et de leur intervention soutenue dans ce domaine pour des motifs variés, au nombre desquels figure l'amélioration des conditions de vie matérielles (sans que la notion de bien-être soit explicitement convoquée).

19 Il faut garder à l'esprit que les prémisses de l'action publique dans le domaine du logement au Royaume-Uni sont indissociables de la question sanitaire¹⁶. Elles découlent du rapport de 1842 d'Edwin Chadwick, ancien commissaire de la réforme des Poor Laws, dans lequel un lien entre environnement insalubre et épidémies récurrentes fut établi pour la première fois (E. Chadwick, 1842 : 422)¹⁷. Ce constat attisa la crainte de voir les épidémies s'étendre aux classes moyennes, déclenchant les premières mesures législatives¹⁸.

20 Dans les années 1880, en raison du rapport de la Commission royale sur le logement des classes ouvrières (Royal Commission, 1885) et de l'évolution de l'opinion publique, à la suite d'un certain nombre d'enquêtes privées révélant l'échec des premières mesures sanitaires, le débat sur le bien-fondé de l'intervention de l'État évolua. Un discours éthique émergea alors qui mit l'accent sur le devoir moral de légiférer et d'agir pour alléger la souffrance des classes ouvrières et améliorer leurs conditions de vie¹⁹. Ce discours aboutira en 1890 au vote du Housing Act permettant aux collectivités locales de financer la construction de logements publics sur les impôts locaux. À cet impératif moral vint s'ajouter une visée utilitariste au tournant du siècle : la découverte par les autorités médicales durant la guerre des Boers que la santé de 35 % des appelés ne leur permettait pas de combattre contribua à établir un lien entre le bien-être physique des classes ouvrières et la défense de l'Empire (G. Cherry, 1988 : 54). La publication du rapport du Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration (1905) ainsi que le débat qui s'ensuivit sur le déclin de la « race britannique » contribuèrent à faire avancer la question des conditions de vie matérielles dans le débat politique. Ce discours utilitariste dominait en particulier au sein du parti conservateur, renforcé par la conviction de ses dirigeants qu'une législation sociale (limitée) constituait l'exact antidote à la structuration du mouvement ouvrier britannique en syndicats et sociétés socialistes (A. Balfour, 1895).

21 Les mesures votées par les gouvernements libéraux entre 1906 et 1914 posant les bases d'une sécurité sociale pour la population britannique, sous la pression de leurs alliés travaillistes, laissèrent de côté la question du logement public. Il fallut attendre la Grande Guerre pour qu'elle fût incluse dans l'action publique au plan national : le Housing Planning Act de 1919, finançant un programme de logement public national pour les classes ouvrières (Homes fit for Heroes Programme) fut justifié par un discours mêlant reconnaissance et utilitarisme. À la volonté de récompenser les combattants britanniques ²⁰ et d'améliorer leurs conditions de vie se superposait la crainte du désordre social consécutif à la démobilisation et à l'exemple de la révolution russe²¹.

22 Le programme ne devait pas survivre cependant aux problèmes économiques de l'après-guerre et aux changements de gouvernements. L'envolée des prix de la construction, en raison de l'inflation d'après-guerre, de la rareté des matériaux et de la main-d'œuvre, et
des taux d'emprunt élevés, conduisit le gouvernement à établir le Departmental Committee
on the High Cost of Building Working Class Dwellings. Le rapport du comité de 1921 fut utilisé
par le gouvernement pour mettre un terme au programme et restreindre les dépenses
publiques dans ce domaine. Les arguments idéologiques et financiers des Conservateurs
pour restreindre l'intervention de l'État à un minimum l'emportèrent sur les efforts des
travaillistes pour faire accepter le principe moral de la construction de logements publics
ouvriers. C'est ainsi que les subventions à la construction publique de logements ouvriers
furent progressivement réduites pour être in fine limitées aux logements indécents et à la
lutte contre l'insalubrité par la loi sur le logement de 1933. Cette intervention minimale
fut confirmée par la loi sur le logement 1935 qui eut le mérite de fournir une formulation
officielle en creux du bien-être matériel, par le biais d'une définition précise du
surpeuplement d'un logement (voir plus haut). Le lien entre bien-être matériel et
politique nationale du logement se dessinait, quoiqu'implicitement.

23

Tout différents furent le cadre discursif et les politiques d'après-guerre. Comme Ruth Levitas l'a démontré (R. Levitas, 1998), l'action publique après 1945 s'inscrit dans plusieurs phases, auxquelles la politique du logement n'échappe pas. Ainsi, des années 1950 aux années 1970, elle fut sous-tendue par un discours de redistribution (ou RED selon la formule de Levitas) qui se concentra sur la lutte contre la pauvreté et les inégalités. Cette direction de l'action publique explique le consensus interpartisan autour d'un programme de construction publique après-guerre et la reprise de la lutte contre l'insalubrité en 1956 afin d'améliorer les conditions de vie de l'ensemble des Britanniques. Cette volonté, gravée dans le programme électoral travailliste de 1951²² découle d'une définition élargie de la citoyenneté britannique. Selon la thèse de Thomas Humphrey Marshall, ce statut impliquait désormais de jouir non seulement des droits civiques et politiques antérieurs, mais aussi désormais de droits sociaux, dont un droit universel au logement (T.H. Marshall, 1950 : 8) concrétisé par la loi de 1949 sur le logement (Housing Act). Limitée après 1956, en raison de profonds désaccords entre travaillistes et conservateurs sur la définition de ce droit (universel ou sélectif), sur le montant des subventions et les destinataires des logements publics, l'intervention de l'État se poursuivra néanmoins jusqu'au début des années 1980, bon an mal an, par le biais d'un programme public de construction soutenu. L'État avait accepté la responsabilité d'améliorer les conditions de vie matérielles des Britanniques par le biais d'une politique du logement.

24

Cependant, dès les années 1950 émerge en parallèle un nouveau discours qui deviendra
dominant avec l'arrivée au pouvoir en 1979 des néo-Libéraux sous la houlette de Margaret
Thatcher. Restreint initialement à certains membres du parti Conservateurs, ce discours
moralisateur (MUD selon R. Levitas), axé sur les thèmes de l'assistanat, et de la
dépendance vis-à-vis de l'État-providence (MHLG, 1965 : 9)²³ conduisit à une profonde
réforme de la politique du logement après 1979. Parmi ses caractéristiques on distingue la
volonté de reléguer au second plan cette question au profit de la réduction des dépenses
publiques, de la réduction de l'inflation et de la liberté de choisir. Ce désintérêt se
manifeste entre 1979 et 1997 dans le domaine du logement par le refus de quantifier les
besoins en logements (C. Whitehead, 1991 : 872) et l'absence de Livre vert consacré au
sujet entre 1979 et 1995.

25

Parce qu'il était perçu par la Nouvelle Droite britannique comme l'incarnation de
l'assistanat (N. Ridley, 1992 : 87)²⁴, de la banqueroute de l'État, et de la mauvaise gestion
des collectivités locales, le logement public fut soumis dès 1980 à des réformes radicales.
Le discours d'indépendance et de responsabilité formulé par les pouvoirs publics durant les années de pouvoir conservateur fut ainsi utilisé pour justifier les politiques de réduction budgétaire drastique (-98 % pour le logement social entre 1980-81 et 1997-8) (P. Balchin, 1995 : 23), le retrait en 1988 aux collectivités locales de leur droit de bâtir, ainsi que l'encouragement de la propriété et la vente des logements sociaux à leurs locataires (CUCO, 1979)²⁵, concrétisé par le *Housing Act* de 1980 (droit étendu en 1984, 1986, 2012 et 2016). En dix-huit ans, près de 1,7 million de logements HLM furent ainsi vendus à leurs locataires, avec à la clef des recettes qui dépassèrent toutes celles des autres programmes de privatisation (Fée, 1998). La question des conditions de logement fut éclipsée pendant 16 ans, jusqu'à l'élection du New Labour en 1997 (à l'exception du programme *Rough Sleepers Initiative* pour les sans-logis à compter de 1990) par des considérations économiques et idéologiques.

26

L'arrivée au pouvoir en 1997 d'un parti travailliste se réclamant d'une Troisième Voie (Third Way) illustre le consensus bipartisan autour de ce que Alan Murie, Richard Grove and Christopher Watson nomme « une protection sociale fondée sur des actifs » (asset-based welfare) (A. Murie et al., 2007). En effet, si le discours dominant s'infléchit, la politique du logement du New Labour ne s'écarta guère de la ligne des Conservateurs. Le leitmotiv de la responsabilité et de l'indépendance céda néanmoins la place à la lutte contre l'exclusion sociale, illustrée par la création en 1997 de la *Social Exclusion Unit* et la mise en œuvre de deux stratégies nationales de rénovation urbaine²⁶. Inscrite dans une vision plus large prônant la nécessité de moderniser l'État (T. Blair, 1998 : 5) et de trouver un nouveau contrat de protection sociale (a new settlement on welfare) (T. Blair, 1995), la politique du logement travailliste fut placée en grande partie sous le signe de la continuité. Elle s'en distingue néanmoins par, en parallèle, un retour à des mesures en faveur des conditions de logement (bien-être matériel), comme en témoigne le titre du Livre vert sur le logement de 2000 (*Quality and Choice*) (DETR, 2000). La mesure phare des mandats travaillistes fut ainsi le *Decent Homes Programme* fixant aux bailleurs sociaux la tâche de mettre aux normes leurs logements avant 2010, avec des aides de l'État totalisant 40 milliards de livres sterling. Le *Housing Act* de 2004 a par ailleurs donné aux collectivités locales le droit de définir des normes minimales légales pour le logement et a mis en place le *Housing Rate and Safety Rating System* afin d'évaluer différemment les conditions de logement en Angleterre (voir plus haut).

## 5. Tensions et contradictions entre discours de bien-être et réformes du logement post 2010

27

Le retour au pouvoir des Conservateurs en 2010 dans une coalition avec les Libéraux Démocrates, puis seuls depuis 2015, a été suivi de coupes sombres dans les dépenses publiques et de réformes qui portent toujours à conséquence pour le bien-être des Anglais. Ces réformes soulèvent la question de la cohérence entre le discours politique plaçant l'accent sur le bien-être et les choix mis en œuvre dans le domaine du logement.

28

Depuis 2010, la politique du logement s'inscrit à nouveau dans un discours économique libéral (M. Beech et S. Lee, 2015), hostile à l'intervention de l'État et aux dépenses publiques, et peu propice à l'amélioration, voire à la stabilité du bien-être matériel des Anglais dans le domaine du logement. Ceci tranche avec les efforts de D. Cameron pour repositionner le parti conservateur durant ses années dans l'opposition, et changer son