I have observed for quite a long time now along with comparisons to other countries of equal developmental status and notice that the overall urban concentration in Australia is similar or near similar to other developed nations but is concentrated so much in comparison in the top 5 urban areas. Along the coast-side of the Great Divide even the other cities are miniscule in comparison, and on the immediate in-land side of the Great Divide which is still more than suitable for settlement the problem is even more pronounce. Also, I have my observed the State government in my state often seems to act as a metropolitan government without seemingly much consideration for what goes on outside the urban borders other than expecting their taxes and taking their water. Also whilst I hear of other countries creating great projects to try and alleviate problems, here unless a election is coming up and they need a excuse to get re-elected we seem to live in a era of almost erie stability whereby nothing gets done and we go ahead and live our lives whilst the world just wizes away in front of our eyes. Why are we not doing more to inter-connect our inhabitable areas? Why can we not finally move on from the old days, and start catching up. Let the average joe just go along with his own life, but for god sakes government if you want to sit back and do nothing go and get a much simpler job, you are there to make our country better not let it fall back and down.

The post is an interesting one but governments can not compel people to live in any place.
The history of this country has always been youth leaving the bush for a better job and life.
Our drought prone country side stops development in some areas, so does lack of work life style is very much playing its part.
We have problems getting health services to even near coastal towns how do we get them out back?
Water for drinking?
It seems uncharitable to blame governments alone for this but if we are to change they would need to play a part.
The house next door to me could bring $500.000 in some Sydney suburbs but is less than $200.000 it has sold twice but each time suburban people miss the lifestyle and return to high rents?
big issue no easy fix but interesting.

The states need to be abolished and several provinces created instead, 6 big-nation-sized states obviously allows for too much oddness in the distrubution of resources and population. The fact of the matter is, this problem does need to be solved. It is not easy to fix no, but unless as usual the governments (who have the most money and resources to fix these problems, other than wealthy people who haven't expressed much desire to help) are bringing up grand plans to try and fix the water crisis, the problem will only get worse and worse, the country areas will slowly die out 5-city-urban cencentration will be worse and worse, distrubution of resources will be more and more concentrated and ineffecient which in turn will limit the time more and more that we will have to fix these problems. The 2020 summit was proof the authorities see seriously solving our real-time problems as a bit of a joke and nothing to worry about too much. We can just talk and talk and let it just slide on from there with nowhere to go. Big-wigs in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart cannot properly account for the interests where only a minority of their voters live, a area vast enough to be essentially a starved lion, because the baby cub that is the "big five" cities get fed much more.

The only way to encourage people to move out of the larger urban areas is to provide jobs, services and cultural opportunities in the rural centres. Cities are burgeoning under the weight of population and existing infrastructure can no longer cope.

Some efforts to decentralise have worked (Albury/Wodonga) but other plans have failed (Monarto, SA).

We need to reduce or maintain the current population growth not add to it that is the first problem and the second is to provide incentives for business to move and that means also providing efficient and reliable transport networks like rail. Once a centre grows to a certain point there is a snowball effect and other services/business follow (and all other needs are met as above).

There may be some opportunities rurally from alternative and renewable energy investments and research (there was recent talk of a large solar plant in the West - not sure where).

Well firstly, the idea is not to stop population growth, Australia needs it if we are to keep up as a whole nation (I am frequently told that small population is the reason Australia lacks any significant influence in the world, and is merely reliant on others). The infrastructure needs to be continuously improved and developed to cope with the growth, preferably even to adeventually gain a foothold ahead of the population growth. There is no excuse for continuing to support inadequate infrastructure especially when the governments are sitting on notable surpluses, and their pay packets continue to increase. Renewable energy is for sure something that must be developed not just thought about. Also, reconsidering the administrative subdivision heirarchy in Australia is necessary, perhaps before anything else to allow for smaller provincial or county governments to take care of smaller areas.

Dear Eagle,

I fully agree with you. It's up to the Federal Government to initiate change. I'm not sure whether any of this came up as a topic on the 2020 Summit, but unless changes are made things will only get worse.

Studies that were done as far back as the 1950s and the 1960s concluded that with the then agricultural production and water storage of our arid continent Australia's population should not exceed 20 million.

Now we have some experts who claim that with our water shortages, reduced agricultural and industrial productivity this drying continent can support a population of 50 million by mid 21st century.
A realistic assessment of our future is desperately needed before commitments are made on immigration and imports of skiiled labour.

It is time to regenerate the land with native growth it once had, to retain the moisture and soil. Time to learn about native food sources. Time to reverse the population drift into the big cities.

Move city jobs to country centres and pipe water from coastal rivers to sustain the population. Analyse agricultural practices and eliminate production using excessive irrigation.

Move agriculture and population centres to the Northern regions where water is available. Relocate government departments to create work. Build hotels to attract people for the tourist market. Everything is achievable. Over the past decades we simply did not want to try.

For example, a suggestion to the Victorian Government to move the Port of Melbourne to Westernport, dam Port Philip Bay and create a fresh water lake, every reason why this couldn't be done was found despite every means of how it can be done was given.

Foxy, you seem to be well with it. There is little spark for innovation among Australian politics, its all just baby steps to get re-elected. What it comes down to, is that if the Government is actually doing its job properly, clearly there is something wrong in the government structure which does not allow them to execute the task at the desired rate. The votes and the population are in the capitals, so therefore they see it as strategically necessary to canter first to the capitals. Hence why, I would suggest making new smaller subdivisions of Australia so each subdivision's governing body can more closely govern a smaller tract of land. The only other alternative if its impossible to get rid of the states is to initiate a intermediatary subdivision between States and councils so these governing bodys can more closely work with the regional communities outside the state capital. Its impssible to have good responsible governance all the time, so therefore the structure must be able to cope with these variations in administration style.

Dear Eagle,

What you're suggesting about the governance of smaller tracts of land, makes a lot of sense.

I just hope that someone of influence in Canberra reads Forums such as this one.

I fully agree with you.

Foxy your ideas are all good, I have pushed some of them in other threads, sending water inland is one.
Growing trees two for every one we cut down by law is another but let us remember.
22 million that is our number how much can we spend? so very many want American quality roads or such not remembering how much it costs.
I think our governments are aware we can not just live on the coast, and are trying to do things.
But concentration? do we mean camps? we can not compel people to stay on the land.
Maybe your list would see some stay but who pays?
Even now I would go far inland but how would I live or even buy my farm?
If we took one new inland city built it from the ground up surrounded it with water jobs and trees some would not stay city's have a call all of their own.

I am often also told about how much major projects cost, but the fact of the matter is the money needs to come from somewhere, it may mean another section of the budget making a small sacrifice, it is not upto the general public to scratch their heads trying to work out how these things are to be done, thats what we have huge bureaucracies, and treasury departments for. If all decisions were upto the general public we will be pretty buggered because we simply dont have the resources and expertise personally to come up with 100% viable solutions to these problems. But for the roads, my major suggestion would be to start off with say the Hume Highway upgrade that to world-class standard bit by bit, take the speed limit off use it as a operational trial, then just start on other roads after that once the funding returns. I would much rather go and get a normal job in the security of knowing that my country will become greater under some wise Administration, but apparently my choices are becoming limited and I may be forced to enter the political arena myself.

Canberra grew while we watched, maybe shifting our govt departments every few years is an idea?
Most don't need to be accessed by all?
Mind you I'd sooner bath a cat! than try to do it.
fluff4

fluff4
I agree that governments could greatly assist with our population density problems by distributing some government services regionally. They have already done so to some extent with call centres in Tasmania and a couple of other regional areas and the ATO used to have regional offices (I think some have now closed).

There is no earthly reason why tax returns could not be administered from anywhere within Australia nor why call centres in various departments cannot be spread around to create employment in rural areas. (I would make emergency services the exception because local knowledge is vital for 000 calls and problems have been experienced in some instances).

Central administration would still be vital to Canberra which is still a small city but many of the very large regional offices in Sydney and Melbourne could easily be located in smaller centres.

This largely comes back to the idea of creating regional governments under states but above councils, they would be large enough that the State government would be unwise to ignore them, especially if a couple agreed on a certain policy and worked together. In a country as scattered as ours, the areas outside of the capitals influence cannot hope to get effective direct governance from their state capital let alone canberra if the states were abolished. Each of the existing major regional urban areas could serve as capitals of their respective regions, this would provide them with the ability to focus on development and delivery of services to a much more broad section of the population. These new divisions could be implemented by the states delegating certain responsibilties to the new divisons in return to have these divisions being sub-ordinate to the state government in theory at least.

We have decentralization plans in place even for inland NSW but to ignore the costs, just flippantly say government should pay is ignorance.
How do they pay? not enough money exists in their hands to pay right now.
And while we are heading to wards your wishes we just can not blindly overlook water power hospitals schools the list is endless.
Shrinking manufacturing industries how do we make jobs?
People wanting to live near the coast or in already existing big city's?
Consider tax havens? make real tax breaks say reduce by 50% for business and workers who live in some zones, maybe it would work?
You bet it would.

In the late 40's such a zone existed in WA, No tax or reduced tax above the 38th parallel, just nth of Canarvon.
No registration of fire arms either. So where did it go?
fluff4

The state governments need to allow a capital city urban area government to be created so that they no longer direct their capital to projects that are capital-centric, which of course chews up much of their budget. There needs to be a seperate metro regional authority to look after such projects.

Stop surrendering and actually keep the metro boundaries that apparently are in place here in Melbourne at least, put a stop to supporting capital city growth for the time being even and then save up to create regional governments, one by one. They could simply base the regions on the census regions, or have a community-based vote or something on the matter of which region they'd like to be a part of, then use that as a guide for the exception that the regions would need to be based on similar population levels (except of course for the capital regions).

Some years ago there were also labor plans to change our system Govt to one similar to France. The scrapping of state govts were of course part of the plan.
Regions were to be formed into "provinces" and provincial govts founded. Elections to the provinces took place and from there national representatives elected.
This was hot topic in Nimbin say 20years ago, and has stayed with me all this time as being worth the effort of greater thought.
First instead of selecting boundaries by electoral numbers they were to be geographical and time boundaries. The way those elected reps were selected from the "provinces" for "federal" representation wasn't clear maybe I don't remember.
This I believe should be explored when any change to a republic is considered.
Anyone else heard of such proposals?
fluff4

I am sure of the many different people who have paseed through politics over the century have proposed things that are echoed on political forums such as this, however getting such things to pass is another whole matter. Other than just general opposition, there seems to be a great timidness among our governments to engage in anything that might compromise big influential stakeholders, in this case the State Governments. However, the idea if it being considered in a saught of package with a republic seems like a good idea, this would fit well with something such as the republic which also of course greatly effects how the Federation is formed. Its interesting France is mentioned, they are of course of a much smaller size than us but with about 3x the population, they have Regions, Departments, Arrondissements, Cantons and finally the Communes. A France-based but streamlined version could possibly work well here.

Clearly this topic is now resting, and rest it shall. But re-awaken it shall also.