Voice of regions needs to be heard

SOME of the findings of this newspaper’s Fair Go For Geelong campaign were surprising.

We live here because we love it and because there is a lifestyle and natural environment you can enjoy here that you can’t find in the rat race of capital cities.

But, as the Fair Go campaign revealed, on some indicators — from income to life expectancy to dental services — we were less well off than Melbourne.

During last year’s Federal election, we campaigned hard and in the most recent Budget a policy of shifting jobs and departments from Canberra to the regions was confirmed. But real change is still to come. So many things happen in Canberra that have massive impact here.

Often, the repercussions are overlooked.

A case in point is the debate over media law reform.

So far the focus has been on whether reforms pursued by the Turnbull Government will make the rich get richer, and reduce diversity.

Fair enough. But what has been largely left out of the debate is the rapacious effect the internet has had on mainstream media like News Corp, which owns this paper, who are great traditional supporters of funding and staffing regional news outlets and getting news out in the regions.

When mainstream media struggles, the regions suffer the most.

Unless media companies can offer the same scale and reach as global tech giants, the range of products we are able to offer will come under pressure.

We live to tell the great local stories of what goes on outside capital cities.

Often these are stories of real regional Australians that otherwise would not get told. And anything that could impact that should be fought, tooth and nail.

Standing still on media reform cannot be an option, for the good of this city and the region.