Demographic and social changes in Australia

It would give country businesses the ability to access the global market, and it would also enable city-based businesses to move to the country, bringing high income earners to country towns.

The second thing government must do is to provide, or facilitate the provision of, transport services.

According to the 1996 census, six and half million Australians, 30 per cent of us, live in non metropolitan Australia, where there are basically three population movements.

First, there is the decline in the dryland wheat belt, and the contraction of smaller towns: in the 21 years to 1997, 205 rural communities lost population, with 70 of them losing a devastating 20 per cent.

Then there are the sponge cities, like Dubbo in NSW, Horsham in Victoria and Narrogin in Western Australia, which are growing often at the expense of outlying towns as services become concentrated in those regional centres.

The third movement is what Bernard Salt from KPMG calls the clamour for the coast. Bernard points out that Australians have always moved around this continent in response to economic imperatives.

He says that in the last two decades, 1.3 million people have moved to the area bounded by Coffs Harbour, Toowoomba and Hervey Bay. 1.3 million: that's equivalent to the entire state of South Australia.

Now, this represents a significant change. Those 1.3 million people were not moving because of economic imperatives: they were moving because of amenity and life-style.

I think this presents great opportunities for rural Australia. But first we must ask the right questions, like how do we build vibrant rural and regional communities in a nation where we are still migrating, still colonising the country?

There is a huge movement of young people out of regional Australia.

Country people often ask, how can we keep our young people in our town?

Now I think it is to be expected that young people want to move away and explore the world. I think the real question should be how do we attract young people, be they the sons and daughters of the town, or young people from elsewhere? And that is a rather different challenge. Certainly a University really helps. James Cook University in Townsville found over 65 per cent of their graduates enter the local workforce.