18 hours Ago By Kate Halfpenny
So we know Albo can be a hipster. He chugged a beer at a Gang of Youths concert and is planning a so-hot-right-now “small wedding”. But he still caught me off guard when, spruiking the government’s $8 million promise for a , he called it a “ ”.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. His government has form: the 2022 federal budget . Undeterred by being sledged as a “spiritual leader”, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it would explore “international best practice” in wellbeing.
Look, I love being well as much as the next midlife matron in the gym class with a secret stash of Valium for relaxation. But wellbeing veers dangerously close to something ubiquitous that I still don’t get: Wellness. Bloody wellness.
When I feel flat, I stalk Insta wellness gurus whose only qualification is good skin, but who want me to attain true spirituality by paying them heaps to do breath work in Sri Lanka. Comedy gold. As was 2025 groom Paul calling himself a “wellness advisor”.
To whom? For what? Naturally then, Burnie’s wellbeing centre has me fascinated. Are Tasmanians who’ve already mastered food, housing and healthcare now craving a salt cave and group sound bath? Wellbeing used to mean eating veggies, jogging, not sneezing on the bus. Free stuff.
Now it’s a juggernaut industry thriving on our insecurities and inability to just go for a walk and drink some damn water (from a tap). Back when kale was a garnish and nobody paid $90 for a moon-charged face mist, and it was fine to just exist in your body like a normal mammal, wellness was called “health”, I think. In 2025, though, it’s a slippery, social media-filtered state that includes but isn’t limited to turmeric tea made by a man named Sage, cold plunges that feel like hypothermia and mantras whispered into your third eye by an alignment coach.
And having a vague sense your teeth are dissolving from all the apple cider vinegar shots. The genius of the wellness industry is convincing healthy people they’re broken. That it’s not cool to simply do basic self-care our 90-year-old nan swore by.
(Her chicken soup is now aspirational bone broth. Her Ponds cold cream is a jade wand and 10-step skincare regimen.) Feeling fine? Sorry, you have adrenal fatigue.
Sleeping OK? Wrong – you need a $300 weighted blanket and to banish all blue light. Eating normally? Mate. Please.
How are you not on an ancestral diet? Yep, sometimes we need help with health. Therapy is valuable. Exercise is important.
Eating nutritious food matters. But the commodification of wellness has less to do with health, everything to do with offering salvation through performative consumption. When girlfriends tell me they’re off to Bali on a “retreat”, I think, “Cool! Go have your blood and poo analysed and learn drumming.
” Were I to go on such a retreat, I’d be the wild-eyed woman stumbling from a forest trying to find a main road and phone reception. Give me a holiday in Phuket where it will be great for my spiritual wellbeing to gorge at the breakfast buffet, get trolleyed, have some fun sex and eat a giant duty free Toblerone poolside. Why does wellness get so much attention? Because we’re tired.
Because everything’s a bit cooked. Because the world is overwhelming and late capitalism is soul-crushing and maybe if we get our vagus nerve massaged, we won’t feel like screaming into a pillow during the school run. But.
I think we know wellness isn’t going to save us. It’s just another shiny thing. A distraction.
A spiritual gym membership we signed up for but forgot to cancel. Because deep down, we suspect that no amount of ecstatic dance workshops will make us feel OK in a world that constantly tells us we’re not. Maybe the real wellness is this: eat something green, move your body a bit, rest when you’re tired, talk to a friend, stop giving your money to people selling you enlightenment in a bottle.
Albo, namaste, I guess..
