From little things, big things can grow again in Northern Australia.
We have the right plan, now it’s time for the ‘hard yards’.
Jack Archer is Deputy CEO of the Regional Australia Institute, Australia’s independent think tank and research organisation for regional Australia.
For decades Australia has been looking for a ‘quick fix’ in the development of Northern Australia. Big visions and grandiose numbers have grabbed the headlines. But as the cynics expect, it just doesn’t seem to happen.
While interest among Southern Australian’s waxed and waned on the issue over recent decades, sophisticated tropical cities emerged and the mining boom transformed the capacity and potential of northern Australia.
The Government’s newly announced White Paper on Developing Northern Australia has signalled that we may finally be taking a smarter approach to developing our North. Keeping the ambition but recognising and tackling the fundamental challenges.
The most substantial difference in this White Paper is the combination of small but smart initiatives which can accumulate to seed significant long term change.
The focus on establishing tradeable water rights is highly significant. If the opportunity is right and certainty is there, users of water will pay for the dam or, with new technology, even store it underground. Like farmers in the Murray-Darling, Indigenous people and other landholders can own these rights and lease them to investors or use them for their own projects, depending on their ambitions.
The Government can help with feasibility studies and other investments, but it is the creation of rights and certainty that will drive long term economic development.
A focus on land tenure and initiatives such as accelerating native title claims to give Indigenous people certainty about their rights is similarly important. The pilots in the plan also complement this change and will help explore and clarify the pathways for development.
This approach addresses the continued difficulty for native title holders in using their land rights for their own future interest. Solving this problem in the right way is a platform for Indigenous people to lead their own development and the development of the north as a whole.
The focus on drawing travellers and residents to the north, and setting goals for local employment in local projects is also much better than the traditional ‘back of the envelope’ population targets or drawings of new cities in the desert.
On their own, these initiaitives may not seems like game changers. But they are as important as the $700 million for road infrastructure and $5 billion loans facility because they can knock down barriers and give northern Australians a clear stake in their future.
The benefits of development must be realised in and by the communities they most directly serve. Backing the people and the growth of existing northern cities and towns into larger, sophisticated places is the right strategy. The role of government is as the proactive facilitator of change.
Overall, this White Paper represents a new maturity in our approach to Northern Development and potentially for regional development as a whole.
It’s critical now the Government makes good on its word and that this is genuinely about ‘action’.
The timing is certainly good if we can move immediately. Regional Australia Institute analysis shows unemployment in Northern Australia is rising. At 7.3%, northern unemployment is the highest it has been since August 2003 and 1.4% higher than the comparable rate in the South.
Under this strategy, mining boom demand can be replaced by a diversity of smaller developments in tourism, agriculture and services. One regional leader from the North I spoke to this week identified 35 separate investments they are working with investors and communities to bring to fruition. The scale of these won’t compare to the mining boom, but they are potentially much more significant in terms of local jobs and local benefits.
Overall, the effort is in the right areas, the approach is measured and practical. Now it’s time to make it happen.
Jack Archer is Deputy CEO of the Regional Australia Institute, Australia’s independent think tank and research organisation for regional Australia.
