Australia is set to join an exclusive club of countries in October, when Treasurer Jim Chalmers will deliver the nation’s first ‘wellbeing budget’.

So what exactly is a wellbeing budget? University of Canberra economist Stephen Bartos, a former secretary of the federal Department of Finance and Administration, has the answers to the inevitable questions, as well as a few lessons from New Zealand’s experience in this area.

Also today, David Bissell reports on his research into the gig economy, which reveals the industry is facing pushback from both workers and customers. Many rideshare drivers and food delivery workers he interviewed are looking to exit the gig economy – and many consumers aren’t feeling very comfortable about their choices, either.

“Customers,” Bissell writes, “often have complicated feelings – including guilt and shame – about using rideshare or food delivery services that rely on gig economy workers. Many have already quit them.”

In other events, the biggest space news since the launch of Hubble was dropped overnight. Although US President Joe Biden jumped the gun and released one photo yesterday, we now have a whole suite of the first detailed images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. They are rare fragments of an incredibly early portrait of the Universe – an age in deep time we’ve never seen before. Stay tuned today for our in-depth analysis by Karl Glazebrook, a Swinburne University professor involved in projects using Webb’s advanced optical and infrared technologies.

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