Communities answer big questions on quality of life

What factors are most important to our quality of life? How do our residents feel about climate change?

To find the answers to these questions, the Living on the Sunshine Coast Survey ran during May for its fourth year, with almost 2000 responses received.

Sunshine Coast Council Environment and Liveability Portfolio Councillor Maria Suarez said the survey targeted residents from across our Sunshine Coast to ensure the data was reflective of our entire community.  

“This survey enables us to understand the values and priorities of a wide range of residents, including those who may be less likely to participate in other engagement opportunities,” Cr Suarez said.

“It’s a vital tool to help measure the current quality of life for people in our communities, while also identifying emerging issues.

“These community insights complement other responses from Council’s various consultation activities to help inform Council strategies, policies and plans.”

In 2024, our community identified the top five themes of importance for liveability as:

1. feeling safe
2. access to the natural environment
3. a lack of road congestion
4. affordable decent housing
5. high quality health services.

In 2024, our community identified they had the best experience with:

1. access to the natural environment
2. high quality health services
3. feeling safe
4. the ability to view and participate in sports and recreation
5. equal tie between sense of community and high-quality education opportunities.

Our community continued to rate their physical and mental health and social wellbeing higher than the Australian average.

Impacts of climate change on quality of life

For the first time, this year’s survey included questions on climate change, exploring residents’ perception of how climate change is already impacting their liveability and how it may impact them in the future.

In 2024, 89% of respondents indicated they believe the climate is changing.  

Of those respondents:

• residents were most likely to expect climate change impacts relating to flooding, storms and extreme heat
• residents were most likely to expect personal impacts related to increasing household bills and access to food
• 45 per cent believed they were already feeling the effects of climate change, and a further 38 per cent expected climate change to impact them in the future.

Environment and Liveability Portfolio Councillor Tim Burns said these responses would help measure our community’s journey to becoming a climate-ready region.

“Council is working to improve our region’s resilience to the impacts of climate change, and this includes helping residents prepare their homes and communities against increasing climate hazards like heat, storms and flooding,” Cr Burns said.

“That’s a journey we need to take together, and these community insights are a starting point.”

Community and nature connections key

Findings on the Sunshine Coast are benchmarked against South East Queensland, Queensland and Australia.

Compared with the average Australian or Queenslander, Sunshine Coast residents have consistently placed higher importance on being able to access the environment and also reported a better experience of accessing the natural environment.

Cr Burns said being well-connected to our natural environment and feeling safe continued to be high priorities for our community.

“The survey explores factors that influence how we live in our communities, how we value our environment and how our local economy can support us.

“These factors, including housing, health, transport and recreation are all important aspects of our Sunshine Coast Biosphere and all influence the sustainability and liveability of our region.”

You can explore the full Living on the Sunshine Coast survey findings online, along with many more local data insights.

About the Living on the Sunshine Coast Survey

Sunshine Coast Council engage independent Australian demographic and economic consultancy firm .id (informed decisions) for the robust survey and data analysis process. The firm works with more than 300 local governments across the nation.

The survey is targeted to Sunshine Coast residents only and responses from outside the local government boundary are removed. Survey responses continue to be collected until it is certain the results are representative of the entire Sunshine Coast community of communities.

Once survey responses are collected, de-identified data is provided to Council and published online with respondents remaining anonymous.