Parents Wes and Leanne Hehir, with children Macey (4) and Ky (6), love Melbourne. Picture: Jake Nowakowski Source: Herald Sun
MELBOURNE has beaten its biggest rivals in Sydney and Brisbane as a family-friendly city.
Victoria's capital has come 14th on a list of the 30 most populous Australian cities, ahead of Sydney (23) and Brisbane (24).
The Suncorp Bank Family Friendly Index ranked the cities for family-friendly factors including health services, schools, childcare, house prices, internet access and unemployment and crime rates.
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Despite Melbourne's solid result, it failed to make the top 10, Suncorp manager Craig Fenwick said.
"The results reveal for the first time that many regional cities have a better balance of job opportunities, housing affordability, income, school sizes, health services, broadband access and lower crime rates," Mr Fenwick said.
"This is the ideal mix for families when it comes to some of the fundamentals, and they're certainly showing up our international hubs like Sydney and Melbourne."
Of five Victorian regional centres on the list, one, Wodonga, came fourth with Bendigo (at 16), Ballarat (22), Geelong (25) and LaTrobe Valley (28).
Regional Cities Victoria chair and Wodonga mayor Mark Byatt said regional centres were important as population growth would also spread across the state.
"Melbourne's got fantastic liveability and lifestyle options, and all of those things that hang off that, and we want to maintain that as a leading city around the world," Cr Byatt said.
The most family-friendly city was Launceston, Tasmania, followed by Canberra and Toowoomba, Queensland.
Mother of two Leanne Hehir said visiting Melbourne from Perth had been great.
"It's great for kids ... there's just a lot more culture, just walking around the streets it just shocked (the kids), more high-rise buildings, more restaurants and better shopping," Ms Hehir said.
"I never would have thought kids could get excited about shopping but they did."
michelle.ainsworth@news.com.au
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