It is not the government's role to regulate which regions grow. The only justification you have given for this control is growth limits in the major cities. If those limits were in fact real, there would be no need for the government to intervene because the 'limits' you mention would do a far better job. Other than that, you have given zero justification for charging people in the city more than their fair share of the tax burden, just because you have some funny notion about where people ought to live. You are trying to solve a problem that does not in fact exist, yet your solution would create real problems.

A big problem with trying to attract people into the country - it's cities that are vital to our economic wealth. A good page summarizing this argument is here: http://www.zompist.com/jacobs.html

A better solution would perhaps be to encourage the formation of a new urban centre in Australia - say in the North West, which could almost certainly support a great deal more people than it does currently, and already has a rapidly developing economy based on tourism and the resources boom. Encouraging new migrants into this area could potentially help decrease the pressure that immigration is putting on water resources, housing prices and urban infrastructure along the Eastern seaboard.

wizofaus,

Cities are our economic wealth generators, this is true to a certain extent (leaving out mining and successful agri areas). However we can decentralise our population without seriously affecting our ability to generate wealth.

Of course what is required is a commitment to infrastructure development (telecomms, decent transport links, etc, etc), job creation (dropping a government department in the middle of a regional area would be a great start) and so on.

The benefits would include reducing pressure on the services and aging infrastructure in our major cities, going someway to reducing the demand on the environment around our major cities as well as opening up new areas to home buyers (and helping to reduce the housing pressures we currently face).

"However we can decentralise our population without seriously affecting our ability to generate wealth.

What makes you think that? You mentioned improved transport. Wouldn't transport infrastructure get a lot worse if the same amount per person was spent on a decentralised population? How much would transport have to improve if most of your trips were 300km instead of 10km?

Freediver, a lot of the transport basics are there, they just are currently underutilised. Some roads etc would need upgrading, particularly around certain areas, and country people would need to get used to more road traffic. Rail networks have been in place for decades and have been allowed to deteriorate, but could be brought back into service without the need for whole new systems (as is required in the major cities now). Networks for export could also extend into non-capital ports, rather than further clogging Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane. In NSW in particular we hear constantly about the need for new roads in Sydney, well we dont need new roads a little further out, we just need targeted upgrades. Not only would the upgrades increase carrying capacity, but would cause greater efficiencies for the current users. Dont forget that most of the goods that you consume come from outside your city, so there is already the transport systems in place to deal with trucking things from one end of the country to the other (and in some cases back again).

All assuming, of course, that road-based transport remains viable for much longer (which basically depends on how quickly electric vehicles can be introduced before the global oil supply situation gets critical).