Home > Our Publications > Australian Outlook> 2004 > Feburary

WHILE most new British migrants flock to Sydney and Perth a new social study has found that residents of these cities are among the most unhappy in Australia.
Poor old Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland gets overlooked when the newcomers arrive.
But the research has shown that its residents are the most contented in Australia.
Researchers aren't sure whether it's the climate, the lifestyle or just something in the water, but Brisbane residents are apparently the. happiest people in Australia.
On the flip side, Sydneysiders are among the most dissatisfied with life.
A new comprehensive study which measures "contentment" in various areas of life - ranging from government to relationships found Brisbane was the feelgood capital.
And while Australians are on the whole a pretty contented lot, Perth has a mortgage on feeling dissatisfied.
These are among the findings from the first state by state comparison of how Australians feel about their lives, undertaken by the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index.
And in nine of 13 quality-of life measures, from security and social conditions to reflections on the environment, business and government Brisbanites feel happier than the people of any other capital city.
In terms of an overall sense of personal wellbeing, only Darwin fared better, with Territorians also lapping up their standard of living and personal community connectedness.
All up, Australians were 75 per cent satisfied with their personal wellbeing, up around 2 per cent from the first wellbeing survey in April 2001.
Just why Brisbane came out on top remains a mystery, said Melanie Davern, index researcher from Deakin University, in Melbourne.
"People do feel differently depending on where they live. But we can only speculate on why," she said. "It may be about like-minded people living together. And issues such as the cost of living and the climate are important too, as well as personal relationships."
"Brisbane has beaten everyone. It's just outstanding," she said.
"We don't know if it's the climate or the community. It's all speculation because we haven't asked them why they are so satisfied.
"It really has huge implications f or people to take the next step and ask what is it about Brisbane. Why are they feeling so much better about things than people in Sydney and Melbourne?"
As with other cities away from the eastern seaboard, Darwinians also featured heavily on the bottom end of the scale, being less content with social conditions in their hometown and life in Australia, and more concerned about national security.
But whether the result of its isolation, or the impact of world-weary English migrants who settle there, nowhere was more downcast than Perth, ranked lowest in four indicators including overall personal wellbeing.
Predictably, residents in our most populous and expensive cities, Sydney and Melbourne, were more likely to bemoan their standard of living and the state of their relationships.
Despite the fear and uncertainty generated by international acts of terrorism, happiness levels actually rose around times of global catastrophe, Miss Davern said.
After events such as September 11, she said "it seems people tend to turn inwards and focus on what they can control, their personal relationships with family, and it lifts the way they feel," she said.
The study is the result of five quarterly surveys up to November 2003-asking 10,000 Australians how they felt about six areas of their personal life, and seven areas of national life.