Localism and the policy goal of securing the socio- economic viability of rural and regional Australia

Introduction: setting the context for the emergence of localism As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2006) has made apparent, rural decline is a common feature across all OECD countries. Within the Australian context, not only is such decline common, it is also not a new phenomenon. As Gutman (2007, p. 384) points out, in the past 100 years agriculture has declined from generating 80 per cent of Gross Domestic Product to less than 5 per cent. Lockie (2000) observes that international economic pressures on Australian agriculture have been cyclically impacting on the industry since late in the nineteenth century. Alston and Kent (2004, p. xiii) observe that ‘small town rural decline and depopulation have been a common factor of rural life at least since the 1970s’. Rural decline has been particularly evidenced in a reduction in the number of people living in rural Australia, an ageing of the residual rural population, and a sustained decline in the number of jobs in agriculture, averaging 2.3 per cent per annum (Bureau of Rural Sciences 2008). However, industries such as agriculture and mining have not been the only drivers of either non-Indigenous settlement or population decline in rural and regional Australia. Initially people also settled in rural and remote locations to provide services not only to agriculture and mining but also as a result of the need for labour to build and maintain critical forms of infrastructure. With regard to services, the town of Dubbo (for example), situated in the north-west of New South Wales, was first established as a settlement serving an emergent pastoral industry. Similarly settlements were established in regard to the development of the overland telegraph, servicing horse driven coaches, railway towns, dams, irrigation systems and the hydroelectricity scheme to name a few. These populations of course in turn needed access to goods and services. And so a positive cycle of development ensued. In support of the role played by people living in these settlements, there was acceptance that urban and country Australians played a significant, interdependent, yet distinctive role in contributing to the viability of the nation state. Central to this value position was the view that all Australians were equally ‘deserving’ of access to services and other social entitlements. This was reflected in policy aims and ideals that strove for a state of national ‘equality’ that was concomitant with ‘being Australian’. This policy manifested itself in ‘country’ Australia through the provision of compensations for the costs and impost of living outside the metropolitan areas (Brett 2007, p. 4). As a result of economic and technological development (such as satellites, broadband communication, helicopters used to inspect telephone and power lines, improved transport systems) the need for local people to be locally based to fulfil many roles has also declined over time. The development of the motor car alone has changed what it means to live in a given place vis-à-vis the accessibility of goods and services available in other settlements. In the 1930s, it was a common event for example, for children to ride a horse (30 minute ride) or walk distances of five miles to the local school. Churches and settlements were also situated within riding distance of rural properties.2 As a result of the motor car, larger distances could be travelled in relatively short periods of time, making schools, services and shops in other localities more accessible. The multiplicative effect of many small changes over a long period of time (80 years) has resulted in subsequent changes in the placement of, and support for, services and shopping. And while many people have moved away from these smaller towns and villages, others have chosen to stay. Such a decision may have been informed by economic necessity or social and cultural factors such as attachment to people and place. Similarly, the push for agricultural efficiency (see Smith and Pritchard, this volume) realised in the increased mechanisation of farm processes meant the need for fewer waged labourers and fewer labourers meant fewer country residents over time. From 1997, and particularly between 2002 and 2008, these problems of decline were exacerbated when large parts of Australian agriculture were subjected to a significant drought (BRS 2008; Kenny 2008) with negative economic impacts on agricultural production and the subsequent social and economic flow on effects on the viability of rural towns. Over time, the cumulative impacts on rural towns of globalising economic forces, informed as they were by neoliberal policies and drought, has meant not just socio-economic decline (Alston and Kent 2004, p. xiii) but the increasing risk that ‘regional towns and cities are sliding towards welfare-dependency’ (Marsden Jacobs et al. 2010, p. xii). With many jobs and businesses at risk, concern about the viability of rural towns is once again uppermost in the minds of the community. It was within this context that localism re-emerged as a policy strategy designed to enable local communities to address the socio-economic challenges which beset them. As a policy strategy localism is neither new nor uniquely Australian. Indeed, as our analysis shows, in developing its policy approach to localism, Australian policymakers drew heavily on policy work undertaken in Europe. However, Australia is geographically distinct from Europe and policies that relate to either space or place need to take spatial, demographic and cultural differences into account. Spatially, Australia differs enormously from Europe. Switzerland, for example, occupies 41,290 square kilometres and is smaller than Australia’s smallest state of Tasmania, which occupies more than 60,000 square kilometres. Some of Australia’s national parks are physically larger than some European countries (such as Belgium). In addition, Australia is far less densely populated than Europe (OECD 2006). In remote Australia, approximately 3 per cent of the population lives on 70 per cent of the landmass. Earlier chapters drew attention to the way policy processes have constructed regions as productive spaces. Population approaches to settlements also construct a certain image as to what constitutes a region. In a report from the Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS 2008) the ‘rural’ was constructed as being those spaces not occupied by small towns or larger settlements. A working definition of regional could also be derived from these analyses. By default, regional did not encompass major urban centres but was also likely to encompass settlements which were greater than 250,000 people which were not also one of the centres of state governance. Regional was also likely to encompass settlements of up to 100,000 people, and of 100,000 to 250,000 people. Notably, while smaller towns and villages may be in decline, so-called regional centres are growing in population. The Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS 2008) reports that regionally Australia has seen growth in centres such as the Gold Coast (Queensland), Geelong and Bendigo (Victoria), Mandurah (Western Australia), the Tweed, Newcastle and Maitland (New South Wales), and Alexandrina, Victor Harbour and Mount Barker (South Australia). Interestingly, only 9 per cent of Australians now live in rural Australia (BRS 2008, p. 3). There are of course a variety of other ways to think about the notion of what constitutes a region, particularly when considered from a community perspective. For Goffman (1969, p. 107) regions ‘may be defined as any place that is bounded to some degree by barriers to perception … they are bounded according to the media of communication in which the barriers to perception occur’. For Kinnear et al. (2013, p. 6) ‘a definition of regional Australia requires a subjective and fluid interpretation: a collection of areas surrounding non-capital settlements; with common features, cohesive functions and/or shared purpose and variable boundaries according to context’. Note that in these definitions of space, the words place and purpose arise. Creswell (2004) makes a specific distinction between space and place, with the idea of space being more readily associated with the idea of a region. For Creswell (2004, p. 39), a place is ‘constituted through reiterative social practice – place is made and remade on a daily basis. Place provides a template for practice – an unstable stage for performance’. Contrasting Kinnear et al. with Creswell, regions might be thought of in terms of physical spaces which are purposeful, perhaps, as an example, with regard to industrial or productive activity, whereas place is ‘a way of being’ (Cresswell 2004, p. 16). Notably, the everyday use of the word place is often associated with the possessive, such as ‘my place’ as well as ‘your place’ and ‘our place’. Place is also associated with identity and culture, taking in such phrases as my place in the world, or my connection to country. Notions of place have as much to do with feelings and relationships to space as they do with lines on a map. We return to these issues of place as distinct from space below as we develop our discussion on the issue of localism.