LOVERS of all that is great about Cairns have rubbished a quality of life survey that gave the city a poor rating.

The BankWest index of 590 local government areas Australia-wide placed Cairns between Dorset in Tasmania and Port Lincoln in South Australia with a ranking of 383.

This was 75 places behind northern rival Townsville.

The national study ranked LGAs on the basis of their health, home ownership, employment, earnings, education and crime rates.

But Cairns Mayor Val Schier said the indicators used in the survey did not measure the quality of people’s lives and focused too much on how much money people made.

She said money was not a good gauge of happiness and the number of people visiting and moving to the region was a clear indicator it was a great place.

"Four of the five top councils had medium home prices of about $1 million," Cr Schier said.

"One of the indicators was taxable income and broadband access but really, what has that got to do with quality of life."

Cr Schier said Cairns’ natural environment, laid-back lifestyle, the creative elements of people and places, and locations such as the Esplanade Lagoon, Ellis Beach and Crystal Cascades boosted the liveability of the region.

Cairns Young Chamber president Sarah Powell also criticised the survey, saying it appeared to be based on criteria that appeal to banks.

"Perhaps, instead of indexing quality of life we should consider the more human element – quality of lifestyle," she said.

"How about measuring the number of days our temperature falls below 20 degrees Celsius, the average number of minutes per day we spend stuck in traffic, the number of smiling faces you see when you walk down the Esplanade, the number of quality restaurants per capita or, even comparing the population growth percentage that is attributable to people relocating to our city each month."

BankWest retail chief executive Ian Corfield agreed Cairns was a beautiful place but said its ranking was pulled down by a high crime rate, its low wages and the low level of home ownership in the region.

Queensland recorded four in the category of 25 LGAs with the lowest quality of life. All of them were indigenous communities – Woora-binda, Lockhart River, Doomadgee and Pormpuraaw.

The top-ranked LGA in Australia was Ku-ring-gai (Sydney), followed by Hunter’s Hill, Nillumbik (Melbourne), Peppermint Grove (Perth) and Mosman (Sydney).

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