Jack Archer’s speech at launch of new economic agenda
Contrary to popular belief, regions and regional Australians are not hapless victims of change.
However, for forty years we’ve seen the areas beyond our major cities as just that. Victims of change they can’t control and don’t possibly have the capacity to deal with. A group to be pitied and saved by those of us lucky enough to live in the big cities.
This negative narrative, fuelled by a relentless focus on stories of hardship, has infected the way we view 40 per cent of our economy and the home for 8.8 million Australians. A place which employs one third of the Australian workforce.
The result has been a self-fulfilling cycle of negative stories that have empowered rent seekers and driven a succession of reactionary, centrally designed policy ‘solutions’ that simply don’t work for the diverse set of regional economic challenges we face.
Forty years of successive governments applying poorly informed, centralised solutions to diverse regional economic challenges.
And despite this policy failure, regional Australia has made a surprising and formidable contribution to the nation’s economy. In fact, without its contribution, Australia’s economy would contract to the size it was in 1997.
There is a considerable economic opportunity on the table for Australia’s future, if we can get the policy and the governance right!
Regional success is built on a balance of local ingenuity and proactivity, and informed, consultative state and federal leadership.
It’s time to get back to backing this capacity.
We need to lift expectations; about what our economy can do what government can do and what regional people can and are already doing.
It’s time for a period of change on our own terms.
October 17, 2018 @ 7:08 pm
Finally, someone is starting to tell the truth about regional Australia. I have been an observer and active participant in community and economic development in north west NSW since the mid 1980s. Since that time government policies have not served our regions well. The generally accepted narratives about our regions are not true reflections of what happens here. Our communities and businesses are inventive, collaborative, creative and vibrant. People want to live here. Many of our young people want to return and many of them are. We are a vast area of untapped potential. We need to have policies and programs in place that recognise the value of our regions and make a better future possible. Regional Australia is not a basket case. We are victims of a centralised misinformed decision-making process that lacks both understanding and imagination. I am pleased that the RAI is trying to address these points. I hope you’re getting a hearing where and when it matters.