Regional Australia has been put under the microscope in the Select Committee on Regional Australia presenting its report on the regions after the pandemic, bushfires, floods and droughts have brought increasing attention to the cracks in local infrastructure, services and connection. 

The report, which was three years in the making - beginning in 2019 - aimed to address the challenges that plague regional Australia, with recommendations to build community liveability, services, connectivity and business. 

Chair of the committee and Member for Barker Tony Pasin said that the report highlights a need for a whole government approach to regional locations.



“The committee has recommended establishing a dedicated Commonwealth Authority with responsibility for developing and implementing regional policies and programs,” Mr Pasin noted.

The regional authority will provide a whole of government approach coordinating activities across Australian government agencies, different levels of government, public, private, non-profit and community sectors to ensure that there is a nationally consistent plan in the development of regional Australia. 

“Our regions are too important to leave to idiosyncratic and haphazard integration and planning,” he said. 

It will be up to that authority to tread the fine line between consistency in approach to the regions, while recognising the unique and diverse range of each region and how their needs may differ. 

Currently, the government initiative Regional Development Australia (RDA) is the most similar organisation, although the body carries no authority. 

The proposed organisation will be partly responsible for administering and achieving the 13 recommendations handed down from the recent report. 

Among the recommendations were greater investment into health training organisations and regional universities, prioritising the release of government land for housing developments, and investigating means of reducing red tape burden upon regional business. 

With submissions from the public open and closed in 2019, there is a chance that the submissions aren’t reflective of the most current version of Australia, who has faced challenges disproportionate to the city, namely a lack of connectivity during increased working from home conditions. 

On top of simply keeping regional Australia alive and thriving, the goal is to improve the quality of life of locals, who, as noted in the submission from the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), suffer from much greater health risks. 

RFDS Federation Director Frank Quinlin noted a number of shortcomings in accessing healthcare across regional areas.

“The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare proposes that all Australians should have reasonable access to services, which it defines to be access within a 60-minute drive time. However, the RFDS found that 42,805 people had no access to any place-based primary healthcare services within a 60-minute drive time,” Mr Quinlin said. 

While COVID-19 became the catalyst for a drive to increase telehealth services for regional area as a way of filling these gaps, the irony was soon discovered as public outrage revealed that regional connection wouldn’t allow for the model to be successful. 

As well as investment in students, the report recommended greater investment in the specialist capacities of regional hospitals, and increasing the number of Medicare funded visits for regional patients. 

The full report can be found on the Committee’s website.