Has anyone considered the potential effect of the large numbers of so-called Grey Nomads travelling and temporarily residing in regional areas? Can this group be organised to demand improved rural health services?

After all, the vast majority of them vote and have health issues associated with advancing age. Granted that they are not greatly interested in services such as maternity, is it not better to have generally improved health services?

A good and timely article, Susan. The best example of purely metrocentric governance was when the Beattie government contracted the Accident and Emergency Unit at Caboolture Hospital to a private operator at double the cost of operating under the public system.

A politically sensitive SE Qld emergency unit has been allowed to operate at 200% of budget to maintain Beattie's urban electoral stocks. And one must ask, how many country A&E units have been closed as a result of operating costs that were only 10% or 20% above the metropolitan standard?

We have a system that closes down small country facilities because they lack the scale economies of large metropolitan centres but we are also given a clear demonstration that a 100% budget over-run is entirely acceptable if the need is metro-centric.

The country doctors are to be applauded for highlighting the commonality of their situation across state boundaries. And the sooner a framework of health practitioner supply and demand can be developed that is independent of the existing state capitals, the better. For lets not forget that under the existing systems, the only way the countryside can get an adequate supply of medico's and other health professionals would be to allow a glut of same in the state capitals.

And while improved co-operation with the Feds is sorely needed, it will not fix the problem. The core problem is that no investment in new infrastructure, and no major outlays on infrastructure maintenance, will be justified on purely economic grounds for a static population. This, and the associated leakage of regional GDP cover state capital overheads is such that regional infrastructure investments will always appear to have less merit than similar investment in the expanding metropolitan regions.

And the only way to plug those leaks from regional economic flows is to create new regional capitals where regional representatives spend their region's share of GST funds on their own regional priorities.

How many people have to be killed and maimed in our "health" system before it sinks in that the existing metro-centric states are not working for regional communities?

It will never be perfect, it is a cost value ratio.

Why spend 1/2 the states budget on 5% of the population?

This annoys me, if you provide the infastrucutre across the board the state has the means to grow anywhere, not just in the Urban areas.

And they wonder why there is mass exodus of the young from the country, and the populations are not growing in line with the rest of the country. Infrastucture should be built first, so we can grow second, not the reverse.

After industrial revolution there were spread of market economy through out the world.Many advancement happened surrounding the industrial belt and rural converted in to urban.Slums developed due to migration of labours with demands of urban lives.At that phase it was a pleasant trips to rural on the part of who had been spent in city for a longer time.There were less transport of foods used to be grown by rural cultivation.There were no dearth of foods who used to earn in city.There were no statistics of rural mortality rate by epidemics or by starvation for low purchasing power of food.To an educated life in rural were charming and it was nice for health also.