‘Situationships’, ‘ghosting’ and ‘heartbreak’: New Govt ‘Love Better’ website cost more than $800k

The website launched last month. Photo / Ministry of Social Development, Love Better
A new Government-funded website intended to help youth foster healthy relationships and learn about the likes of “red flags” and “how to handle a first-time queer crush” has cost more than $800,000.
Social Development Minister Louise Upston believes it’s appropriate spending but her colleague David Seymour, the associate Finance Minister and Act Party leader, has called it excessive.
Love Better is the Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD) campaign aimed at “fostering safe, positive and equal relationships” among young people. It began under the previous Labour Government and is currently focused on helping youth handle break-ups.
It launched a new website on July 31 featuring a range of articles on relationship-related issues and social media videos previously produced for the campaign, including by Canadian-American culture media group VICE.
The Herald can now reveal MSD contracted Voyage Digital for $800,000 to create the website. The department also contracted the website designers to provide three months of maintenance and support for $10,500.
There was a closed competitive procurement process notified on the Government’s tender website GETS, the ministry said.
Since becoming viewable a month ago, the site has recorded 2300 user sessions.
More than $10 million has been committed to the campaign since development began in 2019, including current and forecast expenditure. That came from funding for family violence prevention work found in Budgets 2019 and 2022.
The ministry confirmed expenditure on the website came from that pool of money and no further funds have been committed to the campaign.
Upston is backing the spending on the site, saying it is “absolutely” appropriate.
“We have got to do far more in terms of prevention of family and sexual violence and teaching young people about healthy, safe and equal relationships is a really important part of that,” she told the Herald.
Asked why the campaign needed its own website and the content couldn’t just be housed on MSD’s website, Upston said the information needed to be in “places where young people and the audience will go”.
The effectiveness of the programme will be reviewed like all others, Upston said, but she was comfortable with the current level of investment.
Seymour, however, told the Herald the expenditure was a “good example of the culture of excess that grew up under Labour, and we must now put back in its box”.
“The new Government must turn the ship of wasteful spending around so that every dollar delivers real value to justify taxing it in the first place.”
When Labour launched the campaign, then-associate Minister for Social Development Priyanca Radhakrishnan said “innovative approaches” were necessary to deal with New Zealand’s “shameful statistics of family and sexual violence”.
Seymour’s Act Party campaigned on delivering “real change to wasteful government spending” and has said that if Act wasn’t part of the coalition, the Government wouldn’t have gone as far as it has with spending cuts.
Last week he was critical of the Government contributing $750,000 to a dance competition.
“I’m not impressed, back in my day I danced for free on a show with no taxpayer funding and gave money to charity. Standards are clearly slipping,” he said.
The new website, which has several accessibility options, Instagram Story-like features, and the ability to change the colour, currently spotlights an article on “how to handle a first-time queer crush”.
Other advice is found in a number of categories, including “break-ups”, “red-flags”, “queer”, “third culture kids”, and “abuse”. The top of the website also mentions “situationships”, “ghosting” and “heartbreak” as themes.
Users are asked “how is the vibe today?” and can also take a relationship quiz to “see if yours is healthy or abusive”.
Mark Henderson, MSD’s general manager of Safe Strong Families and Communities, said the website would be promoted online and across government networks.
“The website is designed to provide modern, interactive and engaging content for young people. It’s also designed to be accessible and user-friendly,” he said.
“This doesn’t just mean for the audience. We’ve commissioned a product which allows us to easily make changes and expand the content on offer, without needing to invest more in development costs at later stages in the campaign.”
Henderson said that in addition to physical and emotional harm, “the financial impact of family and sexual violence is felt throughout New Zealand”.
“It costs us billions of dollars every year, throughout the justice and corrections system, the health sector, and in lost productivity.”
Initial assessments on the effectiveness of the overall campaign were positive, with MSD previously saying it was found to be “well received” and “appreciated by young people” of different genders, ethnicities and orientations.
The Love Better TikTok account has more than 11,000 followers and has received about 376,000 “likes”. Many of its videos have been viewed around half a million times.
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.