Regions The 'land Of Have-nots'
The Age
Wednesday November 29, 2006
AUSTRALIA'S poorest and worst-connected areas are being left behind as the gap between the haves and have-nots widens dramatically - particularly with broadband internet access - according to a nationwide study.
The annual State of the Regions report, commissioned by the Australian Local Government Association, has recommended a controversial shift from fuel taxes and registration fees as a way of paying for roads. Instead it proposes a "user pays" toll-road system for heavy vehicles.Compiled by research body National Economics, the report said poor connectivity in regional Australia had translated in many cases to an inability for the regions to attract well-trained workers and new industry - despite lower land costs making these regions attractive to low-income earners, fixed-income retired or semi-retired households.The report found that regions with higher concentrations of low-income earners tended to be less attractive to young people and skilled workers.The report points to one rare example of regional Victoria using technology to flourish: the Bendigo Community Telco, initiated by Greater Bendigo Council and developed by the Bendigo Bank.The company offers line rental, internet access, local and long-distance calls on fixed lines and mobile telephone services, mirroring the services offered by its larger city-based competitors.Spending on telecommunications in the area covered by the Bendigo-based telco has grown to about $160 million a year, with domestic, business and educational use expected to increase significantly, the report says.The report also found that a 10-year-long land boom that began in 1996 - the year the Howard Government was elected - had increased barriers to first-home buyers. In some parts of Victoria, house prices have increased by 450 per cent since 1996.Senator Kim Carr, shadow minister for housing, said the report showed Prime Minister John Howard's Government must be held accountable for the jump in housing prices.In August, Mr Howard blamed the states' failure to provide a supply of land on city fringes for the high cost of housing across the nation."Releasing land on city fringes makes little or no difference to skyrocketing (house) prices," Senator Carr said.The Municipal Association of Victoria said the report was more proof of how desperately disadvantaged the more remote parts of Victoria were."There has been a property boom and a resources boom and if you haven't got on the back of either of those - and many parts of regional Victoria haven't - then you are in trouble in this state," said president Dick Gross, a City of Port Phillip councillor.He said the land boom of 1996 to 2005 had given people a false sense of security.On road tolling, an author of the report, Dr Ian Manning, said electronic toll collection for trucks was worth considering, because of the billions of dollars spent annually repairing the roads that they used.The report argues that local councils are paying too much for roads, and that a user-pays system similar to that introduced for water over the past two decades could be introduced in Australia.
© 2006 The Age