Big-hitting members of the Regional Australia Institute’s Regional Australia Council (RAC) met recently for the first time following the launch of the RAI’s Regionalisation Ambition 2032 – A Framework to Rebalance the Nation (the Ambition).

Corporate council members include Aurizon, Australia Post, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Commonwealth, Domain, Elders, Essential Energy, Expedia Group, KPMG, nab, nbn co., Nutrien Ag Solutions, NRMA, Optus, Transgrid, Telstra and Woolworths.

The Ambition was co-developed by Council members to advance solutions to regional Australia’s challenges and to capture opportunities over the next ten years.

The RAI say it has sparked a much-needed new national conversation about Australia’s population distribution and the planning required to support the nation’s future.

It is no surprise that among the biggest challenges the RAC's corporate members reported was finding workers and the availability of housing when doing business in regional Australia.

“Council members make up some of regional Australia’s biggest employers,” RAI CEO Liz Ritchie said.

“The consistent message from RAC members is that finding enough people with the requisite skills is becoming more and more difficult.”

Only this week, National Skills Commission reported a record 93,000 regional job vacancies highlighting a growing problem for businesses.

“Central to the job challenge is a historically tight regional rental market, which is impeding the attraction of new recruits to our regions and therefore putting a handbrake on business growth,” Ms Ritchie said.

“In order to change our future, we must act and think differently, and we must call on our leaders to do the same. Australia needs a tailored regional lens on the issues affecting our nation. We are not a homogeneous nation; we are diverse, and this requires unique solutions and settings.”

In September 2022 the RAI reported 1495 job vacancies in the Dubbo & Western NSW region advertised through a handful of large online recruitment platforms, and local intelligence indicates that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of actual vacancies.

The Regionalisation Ambition 2032 includes targets to reduce recruitment difficulty to 40% down from 70% in 2022 and to increase regional rental vacancy rates to above 3%. Vacancy rates in many regional centres, including several centres in the western plains area, are currently below 1%.

Regional businesses of all sizes are struggling to procure staff, with record vacancies and low unemployment, while rental vacancies plummet and saleable housing stocks remain extremely limited even in rural and remote communities.

There is widespread agreement that these twin problems need to be tackled head on to enable growth and development.

Bogan Shire GM Derek Francis and Mayor Glen Neill. IMAGE: Mark Coulton.

Bogan Shire Council General manager Derek Francis says small towns are juggling this issue.

“The Bogan Shire area is not immune to the staffing and skills shortages affecting the whole of Australia,” said Mr. Francis.

“The shortage of accommodation is one of the most pressing problems we need to address to move forward, and Council is doing what it can, using grant funding, to make more residential land available for housing.”

“Escalating construction costs and availability of builders do present challenges," Mr Francis said. "We also need to think about some more creative solutions and, as a Council, have facilitated access for our local businesses to recruitment agencies specialising in refugee employment.”

“In my opinion one of the biggest things our Council, and indeed our whole community, can do is to make sure that Nyngan and the Bogan Shire is the most attractive, safe and family-friendly place it possibly can be so that our local people want to stay here, and it makes others really keen to relocate here,” he said.

Having co-developed the Regionalisation Ambition 2032 through the RAI, the focus of the high profile Regional Australia Council now turns to bringing about the policy and investment changes needed to achieve targets and to rebuild the regions. 

“The Council is of firm agreement that shared advocacy across the whole of government is the best strategy. We thank them for their commitment to rebalancing our nation,” Ms Ritchie said.

"By working together as governments, businesses, organisations, and communities the group is aiming to build stronger regions, for a stronger, more balanced nation."

Translating the critical matters that are most important to Regional Australia, Ms Ritchie believes the Regionalisation Ambition 2032 is instigating a real call to action which will shape the nation for generations to come.