A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) puts the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) ahead of 362 regions in its 34 member countries on a performance scale for a region’s ‘wellbeing’.

The regions were assessed on their wellbeing performance across eight categories including safety, health, income, access to services, civic engagement, education and environment.

To this end the ACT out-performed all regions that were assessed, topping the table in six of the eight benchmarks.

“There is only one place in the entire OECD that scores 9 out of 10 or more for each benchmark – and that is the Australian Capital Territory,” says the Property Council of Australia’s ACT Executive Director, Catherine Carter.

“Canberra topped the table in six of the eight benchmarks: education, employment, disposable income, safety, healthcare and accessibility to services. We scored 10 out of 10 for ‘civic engagement’ – alongside all other states except the Northern Territory.”

NSW and Victoria rate very similar with both scoring highly in most categories. NSW does better in income, scoring 7.1, compared to 6.4. Victoria is rated as being better for jobs (8.5 compared to 8.3) and better for safety (9.6 against 9.2).

The indicators for wellbeing were developed by OECD across the following categories:

The performances for each region are available in an OECD Regional Well-Being ‘Matching Machine’ which shows their category, overall and relative performances. The machine also offers a ‘most similar matches’ option which groups regions with similar wellbeing performances.

Canberra’s most similar places:

  • Western Norway
  • Stockholm, Sweden
  • New Hampshire, US
  • South-East England

Victoria and NSW’s most similar places:

  • Stockholm, Sweden
  • Limousin, France
  • Western Norway
  • South Island, New Zealand

The Northern Territory performed the worst of Australia's states, scoring just 4.1 for health and 1.4 for safety. Its health score is in the bottom 29 per cent OECD. Its safety score is in the bottom 13 per cent.

Images: oecdregionalwellbeing.org