MICHELLE Cloherty is not surprised Maranoa is one of the happiest places in Australia – after all, she has raised her whole family here.

The Maranoa has ranked in the top five happiest federal electorates in the country.

All 150 electorates were ranked as part of the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index survey published today.

The survey assesses life satisfaction, finding rural electorates dominate the top of the well-being league table, while big city suburbs bring up the rear.

A personal well-being score out of 100 is recorded, with the national mean of 75.37.

Maranoa had a score of 78.82 to hold fifth place.

Ms Cloherty, who works with her daughter Morgan at Ray White Roma, said people who lived in the Maranoa were happy because the community makes it that way.

“Once you have your family here, you don’t want to live anywhere else,” she said.

“We were going to leave a while ago, but we decided to stay because we loved the community that much.”

Roma-born Morgan agreed with her mother, having had a taste of city life when she moved away after school.

“Roma is a great community – I remember riding my bike up and down the streets, because it was so safe,” she said.

Deakin University senior research fellow Delyse Hutchinson said the well-being divide between suburban and rural Australia was “perhaps linked to aspiration within urban areas and some frustration at not having the resources to meet that aspiration”.

The findings, a joint project of Australian Unity and Deakin University, are gathered from more than 24,000 responses to the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index over 10 years.

IF YOU are looking at making a move to a happier part of Australia, give Ray White a call on 4622 2688.