One of the promises by a minor party in the federal election campaign that didn’t appear to have any winning appeal, or maybe it was the person promising it, but is worth discussing was a lower individual tax rate for those living in regional Australia. Any fair dinkum politician in Canberra or a state capital should be looking at how to redistribute Australia’s population, not sit by watching it concentrate in certain pockets. As I’ve said before one way to boost economic activity in the regions is to attract more people to live there, to slow the divide between regional and metropolitan Australia. This must involve encouraging people to move from the capitals to the regions. A usual reply could be what is the point if there aren’t the jobs, which is valid, in general though more people does create more jobs but it needs to be managed well so the net overall effect is positive.
The outcomes from the federal election result is seemingly to make mine approvals easier and eventually deliver major infrastructure projects to stimulate growth in regional Australia. (Moving Government Departments to the regions seems to have gone quiet again, as has the promise of relocating the Aurizon office workers to Rockhampton.) These projects require significant spending and workers moving to where the work is. Okay, so places like Rockhampton with Adani, ring road, levee bank, Shoalwater Bay, and Rookwood appears likely to benefit from this eventual injection of cash and workers. But what about a place like Biloela, how does it boost its economy?
Does it hope for spin-offs from the proposed Galilee Basin Mine projects, or that Nathan Dam will finally start construction, advertise house and land packages on a $1 a year lease, or offer free land for desired industries to relocate or expand on?
Aggregation of the Councils basically indicated that the state government saw little hope for some regional communities to continue to grow and create enough money from rates and charges to provide expected services and pay back debt. Thus, bundling them together to hopefully create better efficiencies. After greater efficiencies, which would tend to mean cutting back the total Council’s workforce and decrease their spending across the whole region, what does the State Government do next?
Would a general lower income tax rate for those with a principal place of residence in regional Australia benefit communities like Biloela or the more coastal, ‘sea change’ regional locations? And what is deemed regional, Noosa?
Mining and agriculture appear to be the only long-term saviours for Biloela. Industries both investing in greater automation. Building Nathan Dam would provide a big sugar hit and once completed greater crop diversity and production of it, but there are very few still believing they’ll see the day it starts, let alone finishes.
Granted governments can’t just keep building major infrastructure everywhere to prop up the population of regional centres, but we can’t allow them to do nothing as they erode either.
A lower tax rate for regional Australians was an unashamed vote grabber, but even though it didn’t achieve the desired result it should not simply be dismissed. There is no simple or one answer to encourage people to move from the capitals to the regions, but take-home pay should be discussed further. Along with incentives for industries to relocate and expand there (not just to Queensland) and existing businesses to grow and diversify. But regional communities themselves need to examine what they can do, without relying on outsiders, to improve their economies. The internet has made the world smaller and provided many a way of making an income no matter where they reside. It also provides examples of what towns in decline are doing to at least slow it. The changes may be small, but enough small changes could be more beneficial in the long term than one big sugar hit, just ask Gladstone.