Convergence and Divergence in the Australian Space Economy

Australia's space economy has changed rapidly since the 1970s through processes of globalisation, economic restructuring and demographic change. Trends in population distribution and patterns of employment and investment in economic activity highlight both spatial diffusion and concentration. Migration to ‘sun belt’ regions and suburban growth in the mega metro regions is creating population-led demand for production and services, thus creating investment growth and new employment in some consumer-oriented economic activities. However many internationally linked and national market serving economic functions are increasingly concentrated in the two largest cities at strategically located old and new nodes of agglomeration. No longer can population growth be equated directly with increased economic activity, and there are significant spatial mismatches between the outcomes of demographic and economic processes across the nation's cities and regions.     

The economic impact of national competition policy on Australian regions

Over the past 7 years Australia has been undergoing substantial economic reform under a collaborative Federal and State government programme known as national competition policy. These reforms have increased the nation's productivity and international competitiveness, and are generally held responsible for Australia's increased growth rate in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita over the past decade. However, the reforms have been carried out against a background of increased interregional disparities, to which the reform programme may have partly contributed. In this study we examine a number of Australian studies that have used computable general equilibrium modelling to uncover the regional economic consequences of national competition policy.     

Industrial Heritage Tourism and Regional Restructuring in the European Union

This paper explores the current trend among traditional industrial regions in Europe to launch initiatives in the field of 'industrial heritage tourism'. Increasingly, restoring and exploiting former industrial sites for touristic purposes is regarded as a useful strategy for regional renewal. After having discussed its background and categories, we argue that, theoretically, industrial heritage tourism could be an interesting 'new combination' for industrial areas in the European service economy. In practice, however, its effects for regional restructuring might be limited. Therefore, we suggest to re-use Europe's industrial heritage also for other economic activities than only tourism.     

Geographical Takes on Three Decades of Economic Reform in Australia

The idea of an economy taking a geographical journey highlights the importance of changing spatialities and how these shape and result from economic change. It also focuses on the geographical scaling of key processes. Using these insights, this paper explores three decades of economic change in Australia in which the nation State has played a central role in the operation of markets and accumulation processes, albeit with dramatic shifts in the qualitative nature of that role. Such shifts have been crucial during the emergence of Australia's particular variety of neoliberalism. The paper explores the liberalisation of Australia's financial and corporate environment, trade policies and the industrial relations environment. The three cases suggest contradictions inherent in the State's adherence to a neoliberal reform agenda, in the name of globalisation, while facing: first, political needs to retain sovereignty over national security and tighten border protection; and second, multi‐scaled political processes including clashes with State governments grappling with regional and local impacts of change. There has been no simple roll‐out of neoliberalism in Australia since the mid 1990s. Geographical scales, constructed contingently by social and political agents, have contributed in fundamental ways to the power and direction of economic reform. Despite powerful re‐scalings to both global and local levels over the past three decades, there is no evidence of a diminished role for the nation State.     

An Alternative Explanation for Alleged Wreckage of the Caravel San Lesmes found at Amanu

Solomon Islander swimmer Alick Wickham is a celebrated figure in Australian, Solomon Islander and international sport history. His iconic status is inextricably linked to the myth that he introduced the crawl stroke, commonly known as freestyle, to Australia and hence the wider world. The focus of this paper is not the mythic qualities of Wickham's contribution to the crawl stroke, but rather how this myth has been enmeshed in a range of discourses. Through the lens of postcolonialism and by focusing on the creation of social memory — in literature, postage stamps and documentaries — Wickham's contribution to the crawl stroke has been represented in three dominant ways: as a racial discourse centring on the social construction of the ‘nimble savage’, as part of Australian nationalism in terms of the nation's contribution to world swimming, and as a discernible dimension in the construction of Solomon Islander identity after independence.     

Coast Versus Inland: Two Different Queenslands?

To a degree unparalleled in any other major nation, Australia's society and economy shows a spatial dichotomy between a restricted but relatively well-endowed coastal strip and a vast, under-endowed interior. Much of the nation's economic history has been shaped by alternating phases of convergence and divergence in the relative fortunes of coast and interior. Queensland is the state which most clearly typifies this Australian dichotomy, the more so because of the high expectations placed on inland development and the recent strong impulse towards coastal growth and inland decline. The persistent and severe decline of the inland has been overshadowed by economic and demographic growth along the coast. The fortunes of the state are increasingly tied to the future of its coastlands.     

The Spatial Organisation of Women's Soccer in Adelaide: Another Tale of Spatial Inequality?

Although sport is considered an important component of Australian society and a precious vehicle of social interaction, sports geography remains in many ways a neglected field of investigation. Nevertheless, geographical studies of sports can add valuable insights to more acknowledged geographical discourses. They can also contribute to regional sporting success. This paper analyses the current spatial organisation of women's soccer in Adelaide and outlines the unequal spatial expression of its recent professionally‐oriented approach, the achievement phase. A significant proportion of Adelaide's female population experiences limited opportunity to participate fully in the sport. The sport therefore fails to maximise its human resources and its spatial organisation constitutes a limit to the competitiveness of South Australian women's soccer as a system. The paper uses the concept of social capital to explore the unequal engagement of four sub‐regions in women's soccer. Many of the areas experiencing relative exclusion from women's soccer are the same ones that suffer the most from disengagement from the global economy. In those areas, socio‐economic disadvantage is matched by limited opportunities for self‐fulfilment through sport, and the effectiveness of social networks is weaker. This work aims to provide information for South Australian women's soccer institutions to foster enhanced equity in terms of access to the sport in metropolitan Adelaide. It also provides a base from which to investigate the reasons behind sub‐regional differences in the ability to produce quality players, knowledge that, if applied to these less productive areas, may contribute to the general enhancement of overall sporting outcomes.     

Investigating Private Motorised Travel and Vehicle Fleet Efficiency: Using New Data and Methods to Reveal Socio‐Spatial Patterns in Brisbane,Australia

Australian cities have seen continued long‐term growth in private motor vehicle travel that has imposed increasing vehicle energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper investigates the spatial patterns of vehicle energy consumption on urban areas through an analysis of vehicle travel and of vehicle fleet efficiency in Brisbane, Australia. This is achieved by combining motor vehicle registration records and Australian government's ‘Green Vehicle Guide’ of vehicle fuel efficiency database. The results of a spatial analysis of the private vehicle trip distances derived from journey to work data and fuel energy consumption associated with the private‐owned vehicles decomposed to local areas show that private vehicle energy use tends to increase with increasing distance from the city centre (e.g. central business district). This analysis demonstrates that differences in vehicle trip distances and lower proportions of high‐efficiency vehicles in the outer suburbs aggravate vehicle energy consumption in those locations. The paper further compares vehicle energy use results for Brisbane against spatial patterns of suburban socio‐economic disadvantage. The paper demonstrates that access to vehicle fleet technology may compound other forms of socio‐economic disadvantage and vulnerability.     

Economic Governance and the Evolution of Industrial Districts Under Globalization: The Case of Two Mature European Industrial Districts

For many mature European industrial districts, the present decade has been one of trying (and often failing) to meet the difficult challenges posed by the rising tide of globalization. The future of these districts in the new global economy has become a key issue for regional and local development policy, and, in this respect, it has sparked a renewed interest in economic governance. Economic governance is important in that it underpins a region's long-term economic development path. This article is a contribution to the study of the economic governance of industrial districts and the related policy debate. The article does so by specifically exploring the economic governance issue by considering the experiences and challenges currently facing two mature European industrial districts in the global economy.     

Power and Scale: The Shifting Geography of Industrial Relations Law in Australia

Abstract: In an increasingly complex literature exploring the geographies of socially constructed scale, interest has focused on the relationship between scale, power and the contested political terrains through which these relations are played out. In this paper, I argue that these interactions must be understood in specific contexts, where shifts in scale are inextricably linked to shifts in the sources and instruments of power. By applying a scale perspective to the analysis of recent industrial relations legislation in Australia, I show that the nature and direction of rescaling is “fixed” by the powers of institutional actors and the scope of their jurisdictions. I then draw on the distinctively scaled relations of the Australian context to assess the extent to which Australia's national rescaling processes can be seen as representing a process of convergence toward universal “spaces of neoliberalism”.     

Resource Development and Aborigines: The Case of Roebourne 1960–1980

The pervasive and dynamic influence of economic restructuring on political and social relations is highlighted in many aspects of Australian daily life. The effect of economic restructuring on already marginalised and disempowered groups in society is often overlooked Development of iron ore mines and associated new towns, railways and ports transformed the regional economy of Western Australia's Pilbara region in the 1960s and 1970s. For Aborigines in Roebourne, this restructuring represented a new phase in their relations with ‘White Australia’. Interacting historical legacies, corporate strategies, government policies and economic processes further marginalised the region's Aboriginal population and linked the region to the global economy in ways which created significant barriers to the development of Aboriginal self-management strategies. This paper reviews this period with particular emphasis on the social impact of the iron ore ‘boom’ on local Aboriginal people. In the current climate of renewed economic and political crisis in Western Australia, this review provides a timely reminder that such processes occur in a broader context than is often recognised in regional planning processes.     

The Country,the City and the State in the Australian Settlement

The Australian Settlement, as formulated by Paul Kelly, had a sixth pillar: a settlement between the city and the country in which the state compensated people living in the country for the costs of remoteness and sparse settlement. This was underpinned by the reliance of Australian export performance on agriculture, by nation-building commitments to peopling the continent, and by agrarian beliefs in the virtues of country life. Australia's egalitarianism had a spatial and regional as well as a class dimension. Changes in Australia's economy, demography, and political culture have eroded these foundations, leaving rural Australia vulnerable to the neoliberal agenda. The dismantling of tariffs, the restructuring of agriculture, microeconomic reforms driven by National Competition Policy, and regional policy which stresses self-reliance, all treat rural Australia as a minor part of the nation rather than its economic and cultural foundation, and reject claims to special treatment. To give country Australia its own pillar makes visible the magnitude of the historic shifts which have taken place in the state's relationship to rural Australia since 1983 and brings it into the main frame for understanding Australia's abandonment of protective statism.     

The historical geography of early Canada: A Review

The oil refinery/petro‐chemical complex at Grangemouth has played an important part in the rise of the United Kingdom petro‐chemical industry which has been one of the most dynamic elements of the nation's manufacturing sector.¹ The complex has a special significance within Central Scotland in view of the contrast between its rapid development and the declining fortunes of the traditional industrial base. This paper analyses its structure and development and also examines its role as the focus of official attempts to promote Grangemouth/Falkirk as a ‘growth centre’.     

Western Australia's Royalties for Regions program: a policy response to growth,regional neglect,and perceived disempowerment

Under the right conditions, compounding socio‐political and economic change can dramatically alter government policy. From 2000, Western Australia, a resource‐rich jurisdiction, experienced significant change owing to a once‐in‐a‐generation resources boom, which forced a break with earlier development approaches. In 2008, regional interventionism returned to the State via the State Government's Royalties for Regions program. Departing from the neo‐liberal tradition, the program allocated 25 per cent of the State's royalty income to non‐metropolitan regions, over and above existing regional allocations, and its success remains disputed. While it is easy to question the program retrospectively, the socio‐economic and political circumstances from 2000 to 2008 reveal a “perfect storm” of conditions enabling the transition from neo‐liberalism to interventionism in regional development. This paper sets out to understand the multi‐faceted conditions that enabled the dramatic paradigm shift embodied by the program. To this end, it examines the State's rural–urban settlement dichotomy, its staples economy, and the policy context leading up to the program. Following that, the paper proposes a causal framework mapping out the factors driving and rationalising the program. These factors are then examined in detail and include perceived rural voter disenchantment, ineffectual regional development policy, the State's mining boom, inadequate regional development funding, the contrasting fortunes of two regions (illustrative of the impact of growth, and the lack thereof), and the political manoeuvring during the 2008 election. Finally, the paper concludes by considering how the conversion of these conditions resulted in the State's most significant regional policy redirection in decades.     

Geographies of Industrial Convergence: The Case of Retail Banking

This paper considers the relationship between space, place and the convergence of industrial structures and organizational forms by way of an analysis of the retail banking industry in the USA and the UK. The paper examines this process from two theoretical positions. It does so firstly by viewing the process of convergence through the analytical lens of political economy, which looks for explanation in broad structural forces, such as changes in regulatory space and pressures on profitability. The paper then goes on to draw attention to some of the limitations of interpretations of this kind by drawing attention to the importance of place-based evolutionary economic change, and the ways in which conventions of industrial restructuring are transmitted over space. By way of illustration the paper focuses upon the organizational and practical implications of the implementation of two banking technologies: Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) and telephone banking. In doing so, the paper calls for accounts of economic change to pay attention to the rich histories of industrial sectors and for a more active account of economic change which pays attention to the ways in which outcomes are produced through the mixing and borrowing of technologies and practices through space and over time.     

Learning About Regionalism from Europe: ‘Economic Normalisation’ and Beyond

This paper critically analyses the European Union's regional policy framework and considers its implications for Australia's multi‐level governance system. The analysis is made with reference to the ‘new regionalist’ debates in Europe and North America that have asserted the importance of regional economic development in the context of globalisation. New regionalism's advocacy of ‘economic normalisation’ as a leading regional policy aim is critically evaluated against the EU policy experience. Conclusions about the adequacy of new regionalist claims are drawn for Australian policy debates.     

‘Defining Moments’ and Refining Myths in the Making of Place Identity: the Newcastle Knights and the Australian Rugby League Grand Final

This paper deals with the role of the media in refashioning place identity and in repositioning places in the cultural system of space. Specifically, it examines as a case study the media coverage of the September 1997 success of the ‘Newcastle Knights’ in the Australian Rugby League Grand Final. This event produced an intriguing moment in the reimagination of the identity of Newcastle (New South Wales), an industrial city undergoing ‘deindustrialisation‘. The paper draws on Hall’s (1997) notion of ‘resemanticisation‘ in repositioning place identity to explore how key elements of Newcastle’s dominant identity myths were utilised by the media in the post‐match media coverage. Traditional industrial narratives of embattled place were merged with the vision of a bright economic future for a re‐identified Newcastle and recoverable elements of Newcastle’s problematic industrial place identity were recast, stripped of their troubling connotations, and deployed in furthering the project of reimagining a prosperous future for the city. The paper thus considers the role of the media and sport in locating and relocating places in the Australian cultural system of space.     

Cultural governance and creative industries in Singapore

Singapore, a leading country in the Asia‐Pacific region, is currently attempting to transform its cultural industry into creative economy. Creative economies capitalise on how knowledge can be marketed by merging arts, technology and business. They ensure a nation's competitiveness within an integrated global economy. This paper critically examines Singapore's recent cultural policy developments in tourism, broadcasting and new media. It argues that new creative industries have produced new consumption patterns and identities that harness the place‐branding of “New Asia” as a form of cultural capital and a strategy of regional dominance. Cybernetics is proposed as an approach to frame creative cultural governance and consumption in Singapore.     

Industrial reorganisation and coal production in Australia, 1860–1982: an historical materialist analysis

From an historical materialist perspective, the essential quality of industrial change is that it is the product of conflict resident both in the relationship of struggle between capital and labour over the accumulation of surplus value and in the competitive relations between individual capitals over the appropriation of profits. This article is essentially methodological in that it identifies the specific competitive and conflictual determinants of profitability internal to an industry and the external influences of the wider economy which contribute to that industry's ‘relative’ profitability vis a vis investment capital. It argues that the emerging pattern of economic change is structured by a tendency towards crisis and declining profitability. The history of black coal production in Australia is examined in the light of this method and emerging theory of industrial reorganisation.