Power to the regions

NewsCorp’s Fair Go campaign paying big dividends

REGIONAL Australia will become a new engine room of economic growth, driving employment, infrastructure and population growth under a 13year Turnbull government masterplan.

Under the Regions 2030: Unlocking Opportunity, the government will focus on five key pillars: economic development, infrastructure, health, education and communications. It follows more than a year of campaigning from all of NewsCorp’s regional daily newspapers which pleaded for greater funding as part of its Fair Go for Regions Australia campaign.

The policy acknowledged that a “one size fits all” approach to development was ineffective and joins more than $9 billion worth of funding announced in last week’s Federal Budget.

Regional Development Minister Fiona Nash launched the policy yesterday in Broken Hill. She said regional development was about having a vision for what regional communities should look like in 20 years.

“It’s about making sure we create both careers and jobs in our communities so our children and grandchildren can lead fulfilling lives,” she said.

“It’s about developing ways our young people can receive an excellent education without leaving the community they grew up in. It’s about building the kinds of communities our children and grandchildren either want to stay in or come back to.”

Eighteen new initiatives including decentralisation, delivering the 1700km Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail project, suicide prevention trials and an investment of $242.3 billion for schools were outlined as priorities.

However, opposition regional services spokesman Stephen Jones said more than a glossy brochure was needed to address the growing inequality between regional and urban Australia.

“This starts with a decent job and almost 18,000 public sector jobs have been cut by the Turnbull government across the Department of Human Services, Australian Taxation Office and CSIRO, including many in regional Australia,” he said.