State of the Regions Report
5 November 2004
The 2004-05 edition of the leading source of comparative data on the economic performance of all Australian regions - the ALGA/National Economics State of the Regions Report - will be launched at the Australian Local Government Association's Regional Co-operation and Development Forum in Canberra on Sunday 7 November. The Forum is held in conjunction with the National General Assembly of Local Government, which runs from 7 to 10 November.
Advanced media access
The State of the Regions Report is available to the media on an embargoed basis (embargoed until 12 noon Sunday 7 November). To gain advanced access to the online report, contact Rohan Greenland rohan.greenland@alga.asn.au or call 0412 859 434.
The report will be formally released at a press conference to be held in the Murray Room at the National Convention Centre, Canberra, at 12.30pm Sunday 7 November.
Prepared for ALGA by National Economics and sponsored by Jardine Lloyd Thompson, State of the Regions 2004-05 provides a comprehensive stock-take of the economic and social well-being of Australia's 64 regions and their prospects for economic development and employment growth.
The 2004-05 Report updates and extends regional performance indicators and explores the case for the use of infrastructure development to assist regions to improve their performance.
Key features of the 2004-05 Report include:
- Infrastructure inequity does cost regions employment and income: The report indicates that a significant reason for inequality in income and employment opportunities is due to inequalities in infrastructure availability. Failure to address the infrastructure issue will permanently limit national productivity and widen social and economic divisions. However, there are additional reasons for linking infrastructure expansion with high local government involvement.
- Growth at a turning point: National Economics believes that current economic prosperity is based on high and unsustainable household debt/spending levels. This will reduce economic growth in the medium term. Australia could ride out this slowing more effectively if Australian governments take action now and use strong balance sheets to strategically invest in public infrastructure and provide private sector investment incentives.
- Local government infrastructure financing model proposed: Strategic investment in infrastructure and regional development needs local government input, as local communities are best placed to make investment decisions at the local/regional level. A 'long-life debt structure' for local government infrastructure projects is needed with Commonwealth, state and local government all contributing. The model calls for an infrastructure market in which private (eg superannuation) funds are sourced to build projects that have qualified for the scheme (for example, a bridge, tourist information centre, library/adult learning centre, local business centre, water recycling facility). The borrowers would be the three spheres of government.
- Model for regional development: The report outlines a model for regional development (Chapter 10) based on key drivers and outcomes, including wages, labour utilization, human/social capital and education/research capacity. All regions have been ranked according to the model. The report compares the regions with the benchmark region - Global (or central) Sydney. The model is used to calculate the contribution of accessibility and other drivers of regional economic growth. It finds that a five minute improvement in travel time could generate more than $1billion in annual income, including $313m in core metro regions, $335m in dispersed metro regions and $311 in production zone regions.
- Job accessibility: The report provides a new job accessibility ranking to all 64 Australian regions (Chapter 9). This helps assess the benefits of transport infrastructure investment. It measures the number of jobs accessible within various traveling times from housing areas. Interesting variations are reported between metropolitan areas. Suburban regions in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth in general do better than those in Sydney and Brisbane.
- Shop Till You Drop indicator: A Shop Till You Drop indicator has been developed (Chapter 9) to analyse the average proximity of housing areas to retail jobs as a way of evaluating the benefits of transport investment.
- Production zone regions falling behind - looming crisis: The report updates key statistics on each region. It finds that while the core metropolitan regions remain the engine room of Australia's non-mining economic growth, the economic performance of Australia's production zone regions has deteriorated Production zone regions have also had the highest population increases, suggesting a build-up in economic pressures which could produce unacceptable economic outcomes.
- Lifestyle regions improving: Lifestyle regions have continued to improve their economic performance while the rural regions have experienced strong growth with reduced drought and better commodity prices. This has lifted their status from a poor performer in 1999 to moderate performer in 2004. Dispersed - or outer - metropolitan regions have performed relatively poorly because of high debt levels.
