Demographic Change,Differential Ageing,and Public Policy in Rural and Regional Australia: A Three‐State Case Study

This paper takes a differential demographic change in six rural settlement categories within rural and regional Australia as the starting point for the measurement of differential ageing using a Relative Ageing Index which compares ageing in sub‐populations with the national norm. The spatial units employed are 412 rural communities, approximated by social catchments each consisting of a country town and its surrounding dispersed population. The study covers the period from 1981 to 2006 and includes the rural areas of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, excluding major cities, peri‐urban areas, and the remote rangelands. It examines demographic change and differential ageing in a selection of the rural settlement categories recommended for further analysis in the report of the ‘Demographic Change and Liveability Panel’, one of three advisory panels established in 2010 by the then Commonwealth Government seeking to develop a sustainable population strategy for Australia. Ageing profiles are produced for the whole study area, for the individual rural settlement categories, and for the urban and rural components within each category separately. Results show that differential ageing is least advanced in the ‘regional cities’, most advanced in the ‘sea change’, but of most concern in the agriculture‐based rural settlement categories where it exacerbates the effects of overall population decline. In all categories, ageing in the dispersed rural population element exceeded that of the urban component. Results emphasise the vital role of the ‘regional cities’ category in future public policy development supported by ameliorative and collaborative measures for their surrounding agriculture‐based communities.     

Youthful Creativity in Regional Australia: Panacea for Unemployment and Out‐Migration?

This paper addresses the theme of youth out‐migration from rural Australia, in the context of recent policy discussions about creativity and its role in regional development. Ethnographic fieldwork in one rural location – the New South Wales Far North Coast – is drawn upon to highlight how creative industries are being cast as a potential way of promoting cultural activities and jobs for young people, and in turn, how they might be imagined as a means to mitigate youth out‐migration. Yet, creative industries have contradictory employment and social outcomes. Creative industries are likely to generate higher rates of youth participation in economic activities than public data reveal. However, strategies for future job growth should also consider the limitations and instabilities of creative industry employment. Second, and more broadly, the paper discusses those socio‐cultural dimensions of nascent creative industries that may have a more substantial impact when conceived as part of strategies to stem youth exodus from rural areas. Creative activities may contribute to rural development in indirect ways, especially if linked to policy goals of increased tolerance of youth activities, better provision of cultural services, and improved well‐being for young people. While formal job‐creation may be limited, creative industries could mitigate some of the impacts of youth migration to cities by enriching regional social life and mediating perceptions of the advantages and drawbacks of rural versus urban life. This kind of policy imagination requires a shift in attitudes towards young people and a more genuine commitment to encourage young people to feel that they belong in non‐metropolitan areas.     

The Changing Geographies of Power and Control in Rural Service Provision: Recent Restructuring Within the Australian Tractor Dealership System

Over the past few years a considerable body of research has illuminated the changing geographies of service provision in rural Australia. Mostly, this work has emphasised the quantitative aspects of restructuring, by way of documenting numerical reductions in service delivery points and their implications for local employment and service access. In this paper, an examination of recent restructuring within the dealership system for high‐horsepower tractors underlines that these quantitative changes also intersect with qualitative shifts to the character of service delivery. Interviews with 31 participants in the tractor dealership system of Central‐West New South Wales reveal the recent evolution of a producer‐driven supply chain in which two dominant, multinational, tractor‐machinery companies have sought to exercise tighter control over customer relations through the restructuring of franchise agreements with dealers. There has been a resultant demise of the independent dealership, and its replacement by a system of standardised, company‐affiliated outlets operated by franchise holders. Hence, the spatial restructuring of this industry represents the surface manifestations of corporate strategies in which large economic entities are re‐organising their interests in light of globalised theatres of competition and profit. In this sense, the tractor‐dealership system is emblematic of changes to power and control in rural service provision as the franchise models propagated by large corporate interests increasingly subsume the small‐business sector activities of Australia's rural towns.     

Voter Behaviour in Rural Areas: A Study of the Farrer Electoral Division in Southern New South Wales at the 1998 Federal Election

The National (Country) Party, traditional beneficiary of a countrymindedness ethos in rural and regional Australia, suffered a significant electoral setback at the 1998 federal election from a new conservative force in Australian politics, the One Nation Party. One Nation has been characterised as the party of the ‘old’ Australia, those least able to cope with the pace of recent social and economic changes, rationalisation and centralisation of services and the exodus of people from rural and regional areas. Such a characterisation is supported by findings from this study of the geography of voting and the social correlates of One Nation's support base in the Farrer electoral division in south‐western New South Wales.     

Rural Youth Migration Trends in Australia: an Overview of Recent Trends and Two Inland Case Studies

Much of what has been written on the topic of Australian rural youth migration trends and processes has often proceeded from data‐free, or data‐poor grounds. In this context, this paper analyses recent trends in youth (15 to 24 years of age) migration for a temporally‐consistent set of Statistical Divisions (SDs) in inland rural Australia, and for local government areas within the Northern Tablelands and Slopes and Ranges of northern New South Wales and the Western Australian Central Wheatbelt. The paper finds that rates of youth loss from rural regions have increased over the past twenty years. Yet the patterns, processes, causes and impacts of rural youth migration are distributed in a spatially‐uneven fashion. Some remote areas are receiving net migration gains while booming ‘sea change’ coastal regions have experienced heavy losses. While the ‘flight to the bright city lights’ syndrome is evident, relatively high proportions of young people in the Northern SD of NSW move within their immediate region. Nevertheless, some common understandings concerning youth mobility were also confirmed. Gender differentials in migration propensity between women and men are evident even at quite local scales. Young people are also more likely to search out capital cities than the rest of the population. Most inland areas still continue to experience heavy losses of local youth. A more precise understanding of rural youth migration trends is an important stepping stone in the establishment of a reinvigorated research effort into young rural people's perspectives of their changing life chances in their home communities.     

Measuring Efficiency in Local Government: An Analysis of New South Wales Municipalities' Domestic Waste Management Function

Data envelopment analysis is used to measure the technical and scale efficiency of the domestic waste management function in 103 New South Wales local governments. After allowance is made for nondiscretionary environmental factors that may affect the provision of these local public services, such as congestion and the inability to operate machinery in densely populated urban areas, comparison of efficiency across geographic/demographic criteria is made. The results suggest that, on average, waste management inputs could be reduced to just over 65% of the current level based upon observable best-practice, while productivity losses due to scale effects account for slightly over 15% of total inputs. The results also indicate that inefficiency in urban developed councils is largely the result of congestion and other collection difficulties encountered in densely populated areas, while inefficiency in regional and rural councils stems from an inability to attain an optimal scale of operations.     

‘We’re moving out’: Youth Out‐Migration Intentions in Coastal Non‐Metropolitan New South Wales

This article discusses youth out‐migration on the non‐metropolitan New South Wales Eastern Seaboard. High levels of in‐migration and counter‐urbanisation, typical of many coastal non‐metropolitan towns in NSW, mask the out‐migration of youth. There are relatively few 15–24 year olds in the coastal communities of non‐metropolitan New South Wales, because many youths out‐migrate to larger centres, for a range of reasons. Out‐migration also demarcates a life transition away from school life, adolescence and the parental home. This paper draws from research with senior high school students in one coastal town – Coffs Harbour – where such trends have been particularly apparent. It examines the propensity for youth out‐migration and discusses how young people articulate their migration intentions. Young people's perceptions of their current and future prospects feature prominently in their discourses about intended migration, although this research also demonstrates that the life courses of regional youth are unorthodox and diverse in nature.     

Locational disadvantage and the spatial distribution of government expenditure on urban infrastructure and services in metropolitan Sydney (1988–2015)

Provision of public services by state governments rather than municipalities is considered an important urban governance factor preventing deeper levels of socio‐spatial inequality in Australian cities. The paper examines the spatial patterns of investment by the New South Wales state government in a wide range of services and infrastructure in metropolitan Sydney over 28 budget years from 1988/89 to 2015/16. We examined the relationship between volume and type of investment in infrastructure and services, and considered a local area's socioeconomic characteristics, distance from the central business district, and designation as a strategic site in metropolitan plans. Despite an overall redistributive approach favouring relatively disadvantaged areas, the most disadvantaged suburbs in metropolitan Sydney had significantly lower levels of investment. When funding was directed to the most disadvantaged suburbs, it was often in the form of new social housing development, reinforcing both the concentration of poverty and disadvantage in resource access. The findings suggest that this is a case of under‐investment by the state government in areas already populated by disadvantaged communities rather than a market‐driven process whereby disadvantaged households move into poorly resourced neighbourhoods.     

Assessing Socio‐Economic Vulnerability to Climate Change Impacts and Environmental Hazards in New South Wales and Queensland,Australia

This article systematically reviews and synthesises academic, peer‐reviewed literature to assess the state of knowledge concerning socio‐economic vulnerability to climate change impacts and environmental hazards in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia. It focuses upon empirical research that identifies socio‐economic factors associated with vulnerable subpopulations. Using systematic review methods, 35 articles met the inclusion criteria. These articles are analysed according to their general characteristics, the methods used, and the factors reported to be associated with socio‐economic vulnerability. This body of evidence reveals that (1) the majority of the knowledge about socio‐economic vulnerability in New South Wales and Queensland has only recently emerged; (2) more knowledge has been published about Queensland; and (3) extreme temperature is the most researched environmental hazard. Despite increased research activity over time, the number of factors repeatedly demonstrated to influence socio‐economic vulnerability is small. Age, gender, place of residence, and pre‐existing illness were the most commonly reported factors, although the influence of these factors upon socio‐economic vulnerability is complex. There is scope to extend the empirical research base across a broader range of climate‐related hazards and to better link findings from the domains of climate change vulnerability and population health.     

Scaling‐Up,Scaling‐Down,and Scaling‐Out: Local Planning Strategies for Sea‐Level Rise in New South Wales,Australia

Globally, sea‐level rise is expected to impact on many coastal regions and settlements. While mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions remains an important task, adaptation is now seen as a critical component of the policy equation. Local government is a key player in adaptation planning and managing risk through their mandated role in land use planning and development control. Yet, managing the predicted impacts of climate change is proving to be a complex and difficult task for planners and policy makers. This paper reports on a case of local government deliberation on possible planning responses to address future sea‐level rise impacts in New South Wales, Australia. Using structured, expert opinion of planners and other technical experts engaged in a collaborative network in the Sydney region, we explore the feasibility of implementing planning and policy measures at the local and regional scales to respond to inundation risk as a result of sea‐level rise and storm surge events. Our research shows how local governments employ specific scale‐oriented strategies to engage private and public actors at different scales to manage legal, financial, and technical risks in coastal adaptation.     

The greying of resource communities in northern British Columbia: implications for health care delivery in already-underserviced communities

The delivery of 'rural' health care services has long confronted the geographic problems of distance, low user densities, low-order facilities and caregiver shortages. As a result, rural and remote communities across Canada have struggled with health care delivery. For rural and remote communities in resource hinterlands, population ageing driven by industrial restructuring presents a significant departure from past experience. Drawing on examples from northern British Columbia (BC), this paper examines this context of ageing in rural and remote locations with the purpose of highlighting impending challenges for health care service provision. In the first part of this paper, we provide a demographic overview of population change and ageing in northern BC. In the second part, we present data on the availability of services throughout the region to support seniors who age-in-place. Population ageing, in areas that have never dealt with this issue before, highlights not only important servicing questions but also important policy questions about how to provide for needs that the policy and community context are not presently equipped to meet.     

“All Gone Now”: The Material,Discursive and Political Erasure of Bank and Building Society Branches in Britain

Abstract: This paper examines an apparent anomaly that lies at the heart of processes of financial exclusion within Britain. Given that the branch networks of banks and building societies have shrunk in size by about one‐third since 1989, a period during which the Government has launched a wide‐ranging set of policies to tackle financial exclusion, why is it that the issue of branch closure has been neutralised as a political issue? After providing evidence to show the extent of branch closure in Britain and illustrating the ways in which geographical research in particular has drawn attention to the nature of this problem, we look at the way the issue of physical access to financial services has been discursively and politically marginalised. We undertake a detailed history of public policy in the area, and the ways in which research funded by industry bodies and Government departments has been used and framed to build a pro‐market, neoliberal policy programme that constructs branch closures as natural and inevitable.     

The Neoliberal Seduction: Governing‐at‐a‐Distance,Community Development and the Battle over Financial Services Provision in Australia

This paper is concerned with understanding the reasons for the apparent success of neoliberalism: why the model of the ‘entrepreneurial, self‐reliant community’ has been adopted so widely and readily across Australia. It does this through an analysis of two events in the restructuring of financial services provision in regional Australia during the 1990s and 2000s: the John Laws/Australian Bankers’ Association ‘cash for comment’ affair, and the rise of ‘alternative’ financial service providers in the wake of the major trading banks’ financial service withdrawal programmes of the 1990s. This analysis is conducted using the conceptual toolkit of the governmentality literature. In this context, the paper explores the notion of translation — how authorities, agencies, etc., exert control over distant entities, whether these entities be branch staff or a far‐flung consumer market. In examining the often fragile character of ‘governing‐at‐a‐distance’ in modern forms of rule, it is argued that some recent advances in the ‘geography of power’ have much to offer in highlighting both the important roles played by space and scale in the execution of power in its various guises and the ways in which resistance to the more regressive features of neoliberal philosophy and policy may best focus.     

Watercourses and Discourses: Coalmining in the Upper Hunter Valley,New South Wales

ABSTRACT Water is a resource that both unites and divides people in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales, where many communities are facing the prospect of large‐scale open‐cut coalmining developments on productive mixed use land, or already live in proximity to mines and power stations. This article analyses conflicts over a proposed coal mine at Bickham in the Upper Hunter Valley, by contrasting the various protagonists' discourses of water scarcity, supply, and connectivity. It examines the ways in which the terms of opposition are narrowed to the arena of state and industry supported science and economic development, marginalising other cultural values and environmental ethics that are integral to opponents' discourses. Opponents have achieved some measure of success through contestation of the uncertain science of hydrological modelling, bolstered by the context of drought and increasing public acceptance of climate change science.     

Narratives of Community and Change in a Contemporary Rural Setting: The Case of Duaringa,Queensland

Contemporary rural communities are being affected by a range of changes and processes in Australia, including major changes in demographic patterns; the organisation and performance of primary industries; levels of government support for economic and social infrastructure; and wider developments in technology and changing socio‐cultural values. The impact of these processes has been felt unequally and small communities which have had a traditionally close relationship with agricultural industries are particularly challenged. The current paper reports on one such community and provides the opportunity to analyse both the the substance and cultural understandings of such forms of rural change/uncoupling. The paper presents local narratives of community and change in Duaringa, Central Queensland and responds to recent international literature suggesting that the meanings and politics of rural change are as significant as the economic trends that are occurring. The Duaringa narratives demonstrate both the substance and dynamics of expressions of community (and loss). And the paper concludes that these meanings are also influenced by wider processes including consumption‐oriented lifestyles and national interests in South East Asian relations.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LOCATION OF SERVICES AND RURAL SETTLEMENT

Soviet planners are advised to consider the linkage between rural settlement patterns and the provision of services, an issue that is assuming particular significance in connection with the present development program in the Nonchernozem Zone of the RSFSR. The number of service establishments per 1,000 population is not considered a useful indicator because it tends to be high in areas with widely dispersed settlement in small inhabited places, and yet does not reflect a high level of services because of the small size of the establishments. It is desirable to cluster sets of services in central places; the presence of a single kind of service (store, school, etc.) in a small place is found tantamount to having no service whatever. Adequate provision of services is found to reduce, or even reverse, rural out-migration.     

From equalisation to rationalisation: public health care provision in New South Wales

This article examines the changing nature of the resource allocation formula for health care provision in New South Wales. It looks at the technical changes to the formula reviewing its problems and limitations and subsequent modifications. The impact of the formula on actual resource provision is established and this provision is placed in the context of health policy and public expenditure debates in Australia. Finally, the formula and its use as a rationalisation device are examined in relation to economic crisis and state practice with the suggestion being made that certain features of the Australian state may lead to a review of aspects of the theory of the state.     

Hypolithic Plants from Carruthers Peak,Snowy Mountains,New South Wales,Australia

Hypolithic plants, plants growing under rocks, have been found from a number of climatically extreme, mostly arid sites from the poles to the equator, but there are limited reports from temperate zones. A brief survey in the Kosciuszko Alpine Area of New South Wales, Australia, revealed four species of moss and one liverwort growing beneath diaphanous quartz pebbles in feldmark vegetation communities. The probable restricted nature of this phenomenon and the likely impact of global warming, tourists and recreation management activities raise concerns for its conservation.     

A 6000 Year‐old Fossil Dugong from Botany Bay: Inferences about Changes in Sydney's Climate,Sea Levels and Waterways

The excavation in the 1890s of a skeleton of the warm‐water marine mammal Dugong dugon, associated with Aboriginal artefacts, from a Botany Bay salt marsh, marked the beginning of speculation about climate and sea level change in Australia over the period of human occupation. The dugong bones have recently been dated, giving a conventional ¹⁴C age of 5520±70 years BP, which is consistent with three older ¹⁴C dates for a layer of buried trees that underlies much of the north Botany sediments. The carefully drawn cross‐sections of depositional strata produced by the original discoverers allow further interpretation of the pattern of Holocene sea‐level fluctuations in the Sydney region. Layers of estuarine sediment, such as the one containing the dugong skeleton, are inter‐bedded with peat layers containing in situ roots and stumps, suggesting that the site alternated between sub‐aerial exposure and submergence throughout the Holocene. The presence of the dugong is suggestive of warmer conditions, and its inland location indicates a more extensive Botany Bay in the recent past. This is in agreement with other work from southern New South Wales describing both warm‐water marine species and higher sea levels several thousand years ago.

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IMAGINED DIVERSITY

The period that takes in the first term of New Labour in Britain also spans the empowerment of a new elected National Assembly for Wales and the designation of Objective One European structural funds to parts of Wales. Analysis of cultural policy documents from those years finds that the endorsement of an eclectic cultural style as a collective identity for a diverse citizenry is compromised by the implication that it is the Welsh language, rather than diversity itself, that signifies diversity. Scrutiny of proposals for, or assertions about, a “branded” cultural identity reveals inconsistencies between the cultural practices of place‐based communities and the opportunistic affiliations that are deployed in the interests of social and economic development in a “new” information economy.