COMMON Wealth No. 1 of Volume 8

 

 

Regional Australia in a Globalised Economy: Towards a Responsible Framework for Regional Development

Everything depends on certain basic decisions: whether 'globalisation' serves humanity, and every human, or exclusively benefits a development that is not governed by the principles of solidarity, participation or responsible subsidiarity.

Pope John Paul II, 2000

Structural economic reforms implemented by successive Federal Governments have been intended to underpin Australian living standards in an open, internationally integrated economic environment. Of particular significance have been the range of microeconomic reforms, including trade liberalisation and the National Competition Policy ('NCP') measures, that have accompanied the globalisation of the Australian economy, and which have been intended to promote competition, improve economic efficiency and raise productivity growth.

In tandem with the process of globalisation, economic reforms have had diverse regional impacts. There is now clear evidence that despite any benefits that may have accrued to the economy as a whole, these reforms have had destructive consequences for many of the nation's regions, while others again have experienced tremendous growth. Of particular concern here is the persistent and worsening social disadvantage in many regions. Orthodox economic policy is silent about glaring regional disparities and assistance to regional communities is typically limited to a palliative 'adjustment assistance', which is an afterthought to the 'main game' of structural economic reform.

Despite the Commonwealth's rediscovery of the nation's regions and a number of laudable if piecemeal initiatives, this document calls upon the Federal Government to respond to the new economic context with a responsible framework for regional development. The forces of structural economic change, evidenced by persistent and localised disadvantage within many regional communities, necessitates a renewed commitment to regional policy from governments at all levels.

Structural Economic Reform and Regional Disadvantage

For most of the past two decades successive Federal Governments have implemented economic reforms that have had as their stated objective the improvement of Australian living standards (PC 1999a). The means for achieving this objective have been concerned with improving economic efficiency, raising Australia's productivity performance and enhancing international competitiveness. Specific policy reform initiatives have encompassed taxation, corporate regulation, industrial relations, government enterprises and regulation, privatisation, trade and investment liberalisation, competition policy and industry assistance (PC 1999a; Bell 1997). Accompanying these reforms have been a constellation of technological, demographic and market-related changes which, in combination, are commonly referred to as the sources of structural economic change.

A conventional analysis would insist that these reforms have been unambiguously successful. For example, the Productivity Commission points to improvements in Australia's rate of productivity growth and the growth in average incomes throughout the 1990s (1999a). This has seen Australia's national economic performance improve relative to other high-income countries. However, it is equally clear that despite ameliorationist policies these reforms have led to the emergence of significant inequalities.

Taxation and welfare policies are believed to have been largely successful in limiting a worsening of national income inequality over this period. However, these have disguised dramatic increases in regional inequality (Harding 2000). A pattern has now emerged of entrenched, acute social disadvantage in regional communities that have largely missed the economic benefits of the past two decades or that have suffered directly as a consequence of economic reforms and associated structural economic changes (ALGA 1999).

These regions, found principally in manufacturing areas of cities, growing outer suburban areas and smaller communities in rural and resource-based regions, defy the oft cited 'city versus bush' dichotomy. They share chronic employment and service deficits and rate highly in a range of social disadvantage indicators. High unemployment, typically associated with the decline of traditional employers in these regions, has resulted from the internationalisation of the economy, successive waves of microeconomic reform and a failure of regional policy. In combination with rapacious technological change, skills mismatch and low labour mobility, the forces of structural change have acted upon specific regions in ways that are beyond their capacity to address without assistance.

Globalisation and Regional Policy

The regions under discussion are vulnerable in the process of globalisation, understood here as the integration of the Australian economy within the international economy (Meredith & Dyster 1999). International financial integration, principally involving the removal of trade protection and financial deregulation, together with related microeconomic reforms, are producing a new geography of economic activity in Australia (Probert 1994). A central element in this process is the rationalisation of capital, which is generating uneven regional outcomes. The result has been an economic geography characterised by concentrations of wealth and economic activity in globally competitive growth centres, which are increasingly divorced from other local economies, and heightened social and economic inequalities across regions.

Income levels are not by themselves an adequate indicator of 'well being' or of 'disadvantage'. Nonetheless, research undertaken by NATSEM has identified a growing "income chasm" between inner metropolitan and outer suburban communities, and the emergence of a corresponding gap between metropolitan centres and those living outside the major cities (Harding 2000). Furthermore, if whole states can be considered as regions, South Australia and Tasmania have actually experienced falls in real average incomes and have clearly fared worse than the other states over the past two decades (see NATSEM 2000b).

For too long the regional consequences of structural economic change have been ignored or responded to only belatedly with an ad hoc and incoherent regional policy.

However, while governments are coming to recognise the importance of regions as sources of competitive advantage and as crucial links to business centres abroad, "Australia's regions are feeling increasingly isolated and remote from decisions that affect them, and turning inwards because they believe central governments no longer have the capacity or the desire to address their needs" (Walsh 1999, 211-12). This situation has now engendered a deep, almost pathological, cynicism especially amongst rural Australians about the true nature of government interest in them.

Globalisation therefore necessitates a renewed commitment to regional policy, which acknowledges that increasing regional inequality is a consequence of international financial integration and the related domestic microeconomic reforms. This poses a fundamental challenge for governments encumbered by a neoliberal framework that has sought to disengage the State from the economy. Indeed, neoliberalism has amounted to a "sustained endeavour...to absolve the political process of responsibility for economic outcomes" (Boreham et al 1999, 9). This is no longer tolerable as regional inequalities are now so glaringly apparent.

The assumption of a trickle down of economic growth to disadvantaged regions has proven illusory, "[m]arket forces alone will not suffice...Shrinking the role of government is not an answer for regional Australia" (Latham 1998, 115). Indeed, as the seminal Regional Australia Summit concluded, the "[m]arket alone has not delivered for non-metropolitan Australia in many regions and communities" (1999, 3). A new regional policy framework is urgently required.

Both Federal and State Governments are now aware of this crucial regional dimension to inequality and, prompted here to demonstrate solidarity in a meaningful commitment to distributive justice, must urgently attend to their individual situations in order to promote the common good. For too long the regional consequences of structural economic change have been ignored or responded to only belatedly with an ad hoc and incoherent regional policy.

 

Message from Bishop Patrick Power, Secretary of the Bishops' Committee for Social Welfare The current downward spiral of the Australian dollar is a clear example of the impact of global economic forces on individual countries. The strong protests at the economic forums in Seattle and Melbourne gave dramatic popular voice to concerns over global economic policies in relation to the most vulnerable people in our society. So often political leaders and financial moguls tell us that we all have to suffer or "tighten our belts" in difficult economic circumstances. But inevitably, it is the poorest people who are most harshly affected. In most cases they have no reserves they can dip into, they have no collateral to support themselves; their desperate plight simply worsens. If there is a belief in the innate dignity of every person, and in basic human rights, it is incumbent on governments and those shaping economic policies to see that those rights are upheld. This paper points to some of the harsh realities experienced by people in various sections of regional Australia in the light of current global and national policies. After noting some frightening projections on unemployment the paper warns: "Behind these percentage falls in employment, a vast number of individual livelihoods are threatened, families are placed under pressure and the viability of communities is undermined". If these issues are not addressed there will be a continuation of the process where the rich get richer and the poor become poorer. At the beginning of the new millenium, Australia (and the world's) most disadvantaged people need to be given solid grounds for hope. Anything less would amount to an abuse of power on the part of those able to make a difference.

Understanding Australia's Regions

This discussion is concerned to identify those regions that have missed the economic benefits which are said to have accrued following two decades of economic reform, and to describe the differential regional impacts of structural economic change. The regional typology developed by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research ('NIEIR') largely suits this purpose (1999). NIEIR divides the nation into 57 regions, which are based on an aggregation of local government areas, and classifies these into six regional types, which are defined around their geographical location and the most significant factors driving economic and employment change locally. These six types of regions, with examples of each, may be defined as follows.

The above classification identifies three distinct types of regions within metropolitan centres:- core metropolitan; service-based; and industrial-oriented. It recognises that within cities, "there can be significant differences in the structure and dynamics depending on the location of areas in relation to central economic functions, employment centres and infrastructure" (NIEIR 1999, 5).

In assessing significant factors in the economic performance of regions it is therefore inadequate simply to isolate metropolitan from non-metropolitan regions. Whilst acknowledging that the gap in incomes between cities and rural towns is increasing and that rural communities endure unique hardships, it is equally important to note that rural regions are "not uniformly disadvantaged and not uniformly declining" (NATSEM 2000a, 29; ACSWC 2000). However, evidence does suggest that regions in former manufacturing zones of cities, dispersed metropolitan areas, rural-based regions and some resource-based regions have generally experienced particular disadvantage.

'Economic Fundamentals' and Regional Inequality

Successive Federal Governments have been preoccupied with establishing 'economic fundamentals' conducive to maintaining high economic growth rates (PC 1999c, 326). The economic reforms of the past two decades may have delivered a more productive and internationally competitive economy, but "[t]he dominant economic policy settings have underpinned high growth rates, [and] resulted in growing employment and income disparities between regions" (NIEIR 1999, 19).

A striking illustration of these regional disparities is provided by comparing the Mersey-Lyell region of Tasmania with the core metropolitan region of 'Global' Sydney. Mersey-Lyell has a diverse economic base with mining and forest-based industries, well endowed agricultural areas and industrial activity with some textile manufacturing. In spite of such economic diversity, the reforms and other adjustment pressures to which each of these industries have been exposed has not offered protection but in fact "seem to multiply the disadvantages" (West and North West Tasmania's Regional Councils 1999, 12).

The region, which has the most rapidly declining population in Tasmania, currently has an unemployment rate of approximately 12% (DEWRSB 2000, 28). This rate is little changed from four years ago when unemployment was recorded at 12.5% (ABS 1996, 131). An important contributing factor has been an 11% fall in mining employment in the Lyell area in the 15 years to 1996 (PC 1998, 109).

The supposed trickle down effect of national economic growth has not prevented a worsening of regional inequalities

The departures from the region have now also impacted detrimentally on the service industries and associated employment levels. In addition, Mersey-Lyell has the lowest average personal income in Tasmania at $237 per week and holds more than one quarter of Tasmania's public rental tenants. Despite having a population of only 109,000, the region has 33 licensed gaming premises and some 453 gaming machines within its boundaries (ABS 1999). A further indicator of disadvantage are the poor levels of educational attainment, demonstrated by low Year 12 retention rates and attainment of tertiary qualifications by males at half the national average. In general, the situation is so dire that the Councils in the Mersey-Lyell region of West and North West Tasmania have concluded that,

without immediate corrective action, and without help from other governments, the drain of population will be permanent and will distort the demographic structure of the region so that it will become permanently dependent on the country's welfare systems (WNWTRC 1999, 7).

In contrast, inner metropolitan Sydney and its surrounding northern and eastern suburbs now enjoy unemployment rates of less than 4%, while the entire greater Sydney region currently has an unemployment rate of only 4.5% (DEWRSB 2000, 10). That atrocious disparities of this sort should persist after almost a decade of much vaunted national economic growth is an indictment of government neglect. The supposed trickle down effect of national economic growth has not prevented a worsening of regional inequalities. In fact, evidence suggests that "there has been no 'trickle down' of macro economic growth to the unemployed and low income earners in low socio-economic status areas since 1976" (Gregory & Hunter 1996, 20).

Orthodox economic policy, which is concerned with enhancing the nation's competitiveness and productivity performance, principally through waves of microeconomic reform, fails to grasp the essential spatial dimension of economic activity. That is, economic growth is now likely to be concentrated in specific locations or regions, and especially those with a strong skills base. This follows the phenomenon of international financial integration generating a new (region based) geography of economic activity throughout Australia. As Latham (1998, 216) notes:

The economic restructuring associated with globalisation has not only produced a new layer of income inequality, but also reinforced the tendency in urban form towards locational disadvantage and underclass.

Thus, the reality of regions entirely missing waves of growth is a profound challenge now to be faced. Contrary to the hopes of successive Federal Governments, it seems that a rising tide emphatically does not raise all boats. To address this spatial disadvantage a concerted effort must be made at job creation and other initiatives specifically directed and tailored to those regions identified as missing the economic benefits enjoyed by other rapidly growing regions.

Structural Reform - Illusory Benefits

In the past two decades successive Federal Governments have implemented a range of structural economic reforms that have been intended to promote competition, improve economic efficiency and raise productivity growth. Governments have become convinced that with globalisation the principal means of underpinning growth in living standards, typically understood as income levels, is to raise Australia's productivity performance (PC 1999a). Of increasing prominence have been the microeconomic reforms which commenced in Australia with tariff cuts under the Whitlam Government in 1973 and, having now penetrated virtually all economic sectors, have led to the adoption by governments of the National Competition Policy framework in 1995 (Quiggin 1996). Other microeconomic reform examples include privatisation of government services and utilities, financial and industry deregulation and competitive tendering.

These policy developments are of profound importance. They constitute a repudiation of Australia's interventionist or statist traditions of development for an embrace of a neoliberal framework, which elevates to an unquestioned status the role of competition and market processes (Bell 1997). Tariff cuts and the NCP are but two examples that serve to illustrate the devastation wrought by a dogmatic application of microeconomic reform and strongly suggest that changes are necessary in the regional policy formulation process.

Tariff Reform

Tariff protection for Australian manufacturers was lowered from an average level of 24% in 1968-69 to 8% by 1990-91, contributing to a contraction in manufacturing employment by 50% over the period (Gregory & Hunter 1996, 315). Currently, the average effective rate of assistance to total manufacturing is 5.7% and the Productivity Commission has now recommended the further reduction of general tariffs (PC 2000, xiv; Wanna & Withers 2000, 77). In the 15 years to 1996, manufacturing employment in metropolitan centres declined by 146,700 positions, with the three industries of transport equipment, other machinery and textiles, clothing and footwear accounting for two-thirds of the total losses (PC 1998, 21). This precipitous decline in manufacturing employment, which has been concentrated largely in industrial-oriented regions within cities, has driven increasing regional inequality within metropolitan centres and helped entrench disadvantage over the past two decades:

There are large areas of non-employment developing within our cities and employment is becoming geographically polarised. Income is decreasing in areas of low socio-economic status and increasing in areas of high socio-economic status (Gregory & Hunter 1996, 315).

As manufacturing employment has been concentrated in areas of low socio-economic status, declines in manufacturing have had particularly adverse consequences for those poorer areas. Moreover, manufacturing jobs have not been replaced by non-manufacturing work, so that for every 10 manufacturing jobs lost in a given area over a five year period, it is estimated that only five or six are replaced by non-manufacturing jobs (Gregory & Hunter 1996, 319-20). Any new positions created have also tended to been taken by better educated residents from areas of higher socio-economic status. More worrying still, it has been shown that employment losses persist in those regions which once had a large share of manufacturing employment.

Regions of this type would include western Melbourne, the outer western suburbs of Sydney and northern Adelaide, including Elizabeth and Gawler. Studies of these regions reveal a pattern of entrenched social disadvantage, indicated by persistently high unemployment levels, low incomes and a range of corroborating and direct manifestations of disadvantage, such as rates of emergency assistance and the proportion of unskilled workers. For example, the Jesuit Social Services study of the distribution of social disadvantage in New South Wales and Victoria, Unequal in Life, found that Braybrook in western Melbourne, which has experienced the decline of its textile industry, is the most socially disadvantaged of all 622 postcode areas in Victoria (1999). Similarly, the Broadmeadows area of north west Melbourne has been ranked third and its unemployment rate is presently above 13%. This conclusion is supported by the findings of the Australian Bureau of Statistics index of relative disadvantage (1996, 55).

Elizabeth located to the north of Adelaide which previously specialised in automotive, clothing and footwear manufacturing, currently has an unemployment rate of 21.5% and has been experiencing out-migration (DEWRSB 2000, 13 & 23). The Unequal In Life study found that in New South Wales five suburbs of Newcastle were among the most socially disadvantaged in that State, and that these were the same areas identified as being disadvantaged in a similar study undertaken 25 years ago (1999, 45). Here then is striking evidence of persistent and localised inequalities in industrial-oriented regions with manufacturing employment, and which cry out for a region specific response from governments. Whatever the projected longer-term benefits of tariff cuts and trade liberalisation, these are patently absent in the regions most directly affected.

National Competition Policy

The National Competition Policy was introduced by three intergovernmental agreements in April 1995 and established a national economic regulatory framework aimed at maintaining and encouraging competition. The NCP is premised on the view that the public interest is best served by promoting competition, which it is assumed will act to improve efficiency and that this will, in turn, generate a more productive national economy, stimulate economic growth and raise living standards (Kain 1995). The framework comprises a combination of legislation, rules of conduct, implementation plans and has established new national competition institutions, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the National Competition Council ('NCC') (PC 1999c).

What distinguishes the NCP is that unlike other microeconomic reforms, that have tended to focus on specific industry sectors (such as telecommunications) or classes of policy (such as tariffs), the NCP is of such a comprehensive nature that it "establishes general requirements that must be satisfied by any government policy or private agreement" (Quiggin 1998, 7). For the first time, a binding national framework has been established that enshrines competition as a goal in itself, and operates with the presumption that relevant legislation and agreements must promote competition. Moreover, the framework places a burdensome onus of proof on those who wish to retain legislative restrictions. The NCC have stated that, "once a legislative restriction is identified, it goes unless it can be robustly demonstrated that the benefits of the restriction outweigh the costs and that the objective cannot be achieved in other ways" (cited in PC 1999c, 81).

Thus, the NCP framework requires that "where competition is in conflict with other values, there should be a presumption in favour of competition" (Quiggin 1998, 13). However, orthodox economic theory does not claim that unrestricted competition is always beneficial, nor does it promote efficiency when competitive market assumptions fail.

Elements of the NCP commitments include: review by each government of all 'anti-competitive' legislation and the removal of impediments to competition, subject to a public interest test; ensuring competitive neutrality between government business enterprises and private sector competitors; the reform of the structure of public sector utility monopolies, and reviews to consider the merits of breaking these to separate their natural monopoly and competitive elements; the application of competitive conduct rules contained in the Trade Practices Act to all businesses, including statutory marketing authorities and the professions; the continuation of earlier competition reforms to electricity, gas, water and road transport infrastructure; and the application of competition principles to all local governments (PC 1999c).

While the social costs of the NCP and associated structural reforms may not be easily quantified, the proponents of these reforms find no such difficulty in estimating its projected benefits. The impacts of the NCP reforms on regions have been the subject of inquiries undertaken recently by the Productivity Commission and a Senate Select Committee established for this purpose (PC 1999c; SSCSECNCP 1999 & 2000). The Productivity Commission have concluded that the NCP reforms will cumulatively raise real GDP by 2.5%, driven largely by reforms to electricity, gas and telecommunications. Real wages are estimated to be approximately 3.4% higher as a result of the NCP measures and output is expected to rise in all regions except Gippsland in Victoria (1999b, 69 & 71). However, even in its own analysis, the Productivity Commission concedes employment levels will be lower in 33 regions due to NCP reforms, and that these will be largely non-metropolitan where there is often an insufficiently diversified economic base to absorb job losses (1999b, 11).

Among the industries that are anticipated to experience the largest employment reductions as a consequence of the NCP measures are electricity (by 61%), dairy products (by 29%), telecommunications (by 38%), and water (by 8.5%) (1999b, 70-80). Behind these percentage falls in employment, a vast number of individual livelihoods are threatened, families are placed under pressure and the viability of communities is undermined.

Of the 33 regions listed, the Productivity Commission have identified 14 regions, accounting for some 25% of Australia's land area, whose employment situation is particularly dire. These regions include: Mersey-Lyell in Tasmania; Eyre, Yorke and Murray Lands in South Australia; Northern New South Wales; South West and Central Queensland; and Gippsland, Mallee, Wimmera and the Western District of Victoria (1999b, 19). These are overwhelmingly rural and resource-based regions with predominantly agricultural industries, and whose employment levels have already been affected by other factors such as declining terms of trade. This is now being compounded by the effects of the NCP. Even the most staunch apologists for the NCP measures, such as the Institute of Public Affairs, have conceded that "there has been a cost - and it has been large and geographically concentrated" (Nahan 2000).

What can be gleaned by a close reading of the Productivity Commission's report into the regional impacts of the NCP is corroborated by independent analysis and confirmed by those communities whose lived experience of competition reforms speak most powerfully of the considerable social costs. A study conducted on behalf of the Australian Local Government Association ('ALGA') has drawn critical conclusions. By comparing regional employment and output changes in NCP industries (electricity, gas, water, road transport, rail transport, telecommunications and services to agriculture) to regional macroeconomic totals, NIEIR have determined that - at the very least - the following regions have been significantly adversely affected by NCP measures: Central, Western and Northern New South Wales, Eyre and Yorke, Gippsland, all Tasmanian regions and Northern Queensland. Again, these are typically resource and rural based regions with concentrations of agricultural industries. To this list can be added the moderately negatively affected regions of the Hunter in New South Wales, Outer Western Sydney, Western Melbourne and the Pilbara-Kimberley. In the period to 1998, all of these regions experienced declines in output in NCP industries as a percentage of 1991 gross regional product, and experienced employment losses as a percentage of 1991 total employment levels (NIEIR 1999, 80-1).

The Productivity Commission maintains that any job losses resulting from the NCP will be offset by gains in average income per person employed. Yet it is equally clear that the social and economic costs have been amplified in these particular regions:

The essence of the outcomes from national competition policies are concentration, specialisation and the maximisation of the economies of scale and scope. By definition this requires differential (positive/negative) impacts at the regional level (NIEIR 1999, 78).

There has been a temporal and spatial asymmetry in the incidence of the costs and benefits of NCP reforms. That is, the costs of the NCP reforms are usually visible, relatively immediate and highly concentrated within specific regions and industries, while any benefits are likely to be diffuse and materialise only in the long run and in other regions. More simply, as Tanner has stated, "[t]he new jobs emerging are usually located well away from the regions where the old jobs are disappearing" (1999, 125). This in fact confirms what the Productivity Commission has been prepared to concede, that the reforms implemented to date have "provided greater benefits to large businesses and people in metropolitan areas, as intended" (Plunkett cited in SSCSECNCP 2000, 53). It is profoundly disturbing that implicit in NCP reforms is an acceptance that some regions may suffer for the benefit of the economy as a whole.

It is profoundly disturbing that implicit in NCP reforms is an acceptance that some regions may suffer for the benefit of the economy as a whole

The Federal Government's official response to the inquiries into the regional impacts of the NCP concurred with the Productivity Commission's assessment that the reforms have been unfairly scapegoated for the array of other structural economic changes that have had deleterious consequences at a regional level. Those concerned with these consequences, and particularly those who have lived experience of their impacts, are dismissed for apparently either failing to fully appreciate the alleged benefits or to have confused their effects with other factors, such as 'changing consumer preferences', 'lifestyle changes' or other reform measures (Commonwealth of Australia 2000). The Government has indicated that it will seek to better promote the alleged benefits of the NCP reforms.

And yet, quantitative estimates of increases in the GDP or incomes per person employed, for example, reveal nothing about the socially corrosive consequences of competition reforms in many regions. In the communities most adversely affected, local governments and community groups tell of a profoundly different experience that ought not be so readily dismissed. The persistence of regional hardship requires far more than a marketing exercise of the illusory benefits of competition reforms.

The Gippsland region of Victoria provides the most striking example of the NCP at work in a regional economy. The rationalisation of the electricity generation industry under the NCP has directly contributed to the loss of more than 6,000 jobs, or approximately 10% of the population of the La Trobe Valley, which is effectively the region's centre. It is of no consolation to the communities in the Gippsland region, which currently has unemployment rates above 16% in some areas, to be told that their region can boast large productivity improvements or that they will enjoy an estimated 5.6% increase in 'income per worker employed' (PC 1999b, 64; DEWRSB 2000, 15). This amounts to a trivialisation of the social destruction wrought by the competition reforms. The La Trobe Valley Shire Council state that:

The rationalisation and privatisation of the electricity industry offers a dramatic example of the national competition policy in operation. Our local community believed that the government virtually changed the rules with severe disruption to people's lives and expectations. Over a number of years we had been led to believe that there would be continuing expansion in the electricity industry...Generations of people had expected to receive secure employment and there was a whole system of tertiary training built around that. Then virtually overnight that all changed (cited in SSCSECNCP 2000, 79).

The Council also points to the very real economic deficits that have resulted, such as the loss of skills to the region and the winding back of training programs and other services. This naturally follows because of the social and economic interdependence of communities within regions:

A contraction in one industry leads to lower demand for the suppliers of inputs, while the associated loss of employment reduces the income of retail traders and the viability of schools and other services (Quiggin 1998, 26).

The Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry ('AFFA') is also concerned that the reduction of cross-subsidies under the NCP will undermine interdependence and produce less cohesive communities, particularly in rural regions. Moreover, AFFA argue that the "reduction in cohesiveness of rural communities should be factored into the costs of the NCP reforms" (1999, 6).

The persistence of regional hardship requires far more than a marketing exercise of the illusory benefits of competition reforms

Similarly, communities in North West Tasmania, where there has been a concentration of agricultural industries, have seen the NCP reforms simply compound other difficulties. At a time when communities in this region are seeking desperately to address regional development issues, the NCP is seen as having nothing to offer:

North West Tasmania is experiencing high levels of unemployment and a contraction of economic development - NCP does little to assist in overcoming these problems. It exports jobs to highly concentrated and already populated areas away from the country areas which need them most (Tasmania's North West Councils 1998, 5).

Furthermore, the NCP reforms are not only destructive of existing industries, such as dairy farming, but also impose additional administrative burdens and restrictions on local government which are subordinate in the NCP framework. The Council's simply,

wonder why, when rural and regional Australia is at one of its lowest ebbs, they must take specific actions which seriously endanger the ability of their local communities to survive (1998, 11).

Implications for Regional Policy

The persistence of localised inequalities demonstrates how crucial region-specific responses to the consequences of structural economic reforms have become. Unemployment and other indicators of entrenched social disadvantage are highly concentrated within specific regions. Furthermore, not all affected regions have the same capacity to adjust to structural reforms and some face greater adjustment challenges than others. Some regions have a limited industrial base and are less able to provide alternative employment when significant local industries are restructured, while other regions face multiple challenges, such as competition reforms and declining terms of trade.

Direct consultation with the regions and communities regarding the adverse social welfare and equity effects of reforms must be initiated and be made mandatory. However, the Federal Government has reiterated its view that, with regards to reviews of legislation under the NCP for example, "costs and benefits should be identified on a national basis" (2000, 4). This clearly implies that growing regional inequalities will be tolerated if it is thought that there are net economic benefits to the economy as a whole. That some regions could simply be sacrificed in this way is unthinkable.

The Federal Government maintains that in addition to generally available assistance measures, specific adjustment assistance will be provided for groups in order to facilitate change (Commonwealth of Australia 2000, 7). Examples include the adjustment package for dairy farmers and assistance to Newcastle following the decommissioning of the BHP steel works in September 1999. Despite a heightened electoral sensitivity, the Federal Government's regional assistance measures have "often been palliatives that are entertained for political consumption" (Wanna & Withers 2000, 85). This has most recently been displayed by piecemeal efforts in petrol price subsidies and ad hoc support for cane growers. Furthermore, while both state and federal grants to local governments have been partially designed to address the issues of regional disadvantage, these have "demonstrably failed to reverse or to arrest the overall trend of social inequality in Australia, which has actually tended to accelerate" (Dollery & Soul 2000, 163).

More fundamentally however, genuine concern must be had for the social welfare impact on regions and communities of structural reforms. Hence, "distributional questions have to be seen as an integral part of policy and built in from the design stage - as part of the product not just part of the sales drive" (Saunders 1999, 253). That is, the distributional consequences and projected transitional costs of any policy change must no longer be considered merely as an 'after-thought' to the 'main game' of promoting efficiency and competition.

The distributional outcomes of reforms must become central considerations in designing policy. In turn, this requires no longer viewing 'efficiency gains' and 'regional development' as being in opposition to one another. Indeed, this may save governments an embarrassed silence in the face of worsening regional inequalities, and being forced to respond in an ad hoc (and usually expensive) manner to electoral pressures for specific adjustment assistance when they inevitably arise.

The distributional outcomes of reforms must become central considerations in designing policy

Evidence suggests that approximately 50% of workers made redundant by microeconomic reforms were either not in the labour force or still unemployed after three years (Quiggin 1998, 27). Such costs cannot be considered as 'transitional' when region-specific unemployment is clearly becoming permanent. A passive and largely palliative adjustment assistance that seeks only to 'facilitate change' or to aid in the removal of 'structural rigidities' is wholly inadequate. There is a manifest need for policies that directly stimulate regional economic development and employment growth.

Beyond Structural Reform: Towards A New Regional Policy Framework

In view of the disparities that are now so glaringly apparent and the failure of orthodox economic policy to arrest, or even to address regional disadvantage, regional policy is now receiving renewed attention by legislators at all levels of government. The Commonwealth's recent rediscovery of regional Australia is to be welcomed, as a "new regional policy framework is urgently required if the regional divergence is to be turned around" (NIEIR 1999, 3).

The Discontents of Regional Policy

In October 1999 the Federal Government convened the Regional Australia Summit which gathered 280 representatives and made 247 recommendations, addressing the roles of government, business and the community. These recommendations have since been synthesised by the Summit's Steering Committee and presented in its interim report focussing on government responsibilities (2000). Committees of the Federal Parliament have conducted inquiries into the needs of regional Australia and the consequences of economic policies for regions. Notably, the House of Representatives Committee on Primary Industries and Regional Services issued a report in March 2000, Time Running Out: Shaping Regional Australia's Future, which pointed to the infrastructure needs of regions. In September 1999 the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education References Committee tabled a report entitled Jobs For the Regions, which inquired into the disparity in employment levels between regions and examined strategies to reduce regional unemployment. At a state and local level governments have announced new spending for regional development, partnerships with business in infrastructure initiatives and are conducting inquiries into, for example, the opportunities for strengthening rural towns (NSWSCSD 1999).

It is laudable that the Federal Government has initiated and in some cases expanded resources for a range of programmes that respond to the urgent needs of regional Australia and these include: the Agriculture - Advancing Australia package to assist farmers with their businesses and rural families in financial difficulty; the substantial Regional Health Package, announced in the 2000-01 Federal Budget; the Regional Solutions Programme for regional communities experiencing high unemployment and inadequate social services; and the continued operation of Area Consultative Committees, funded through the Regional Assistance Programme.

However, regional policies have demonstrated an incapacity to confront persistent and localised regional inequalities; policies have failed to respond flexibly to regional diversity; national economic reforms have been implemented with virtually no regard for their differential regional impacts; the distributional consequences of structural economic reforms are largely ignored; and the tier of government closest to regional disadvantage is both subordinated and under resourced. In light of these realities, it is difficult not to conclude that Australia's policy framework for regional economic development has been partial and flawed.

The complexities of regional policy making in Australia do however need to be acknowledged. It is clear from the foregoing that responsibility for regional development is spread across all tiers of government; that regional policy necessarily involves many portfolio areas; that in an open economy there is now less public control over many of the causes of regional hardship, and there are of course competing regional interests. While a number of European countries have enshrined a right to balanced regional development within their constitutions or established this as a major goal of central government, no such formal requirement rests on the Australian Federal Government (Hugonnier 1999, 6).

In practice however the Commonwealth's responsibilities for a range of matters, including national economic policy settings, international trade, social security, managing industry adjustment, research and development and industry policy, telecommunications and other infrastructure, and higher education actually give the Federal Government a greater degree of control and influence over regional development than the states, and this capacity would seem to be expanding (Sorensen 2000, 15). Therefore, the constitutional allocation of responsibilities and capacities clearly accords the Federal Government the pre-eminent, if admittedly de facto, role in regional policy making - a role that must not be shirked.

While the requirement that all relevant Cabinet submissions must now include a 'Regional Impact Statement' is an advance, and despite the intrinsic worth of the range of programmes presently being funded, regional policy betrays a complete lack of strategy and coherence. Thus, it is hoped that there is now a "consensus over the 'crying need' for coherent, effective and sustainable regional policies" (Wanna & Withers 2000, 87).

Elements of a New Regional Policy Framework

Structural economic changes and international financial integration are having such diverse impacts on regions that regional development policy is being posed fundamentally new challenges. This has been recognised by the OECD with its creation in 1999 of a Territorial Development Policy Committee, which has stated that there is now

agreement that policies based on redistribution mechanisms involving direct assistance to enterprises, technocratic approaches to heavy industry or support to declining economic activities do little to stimulate economic growth and employment in the regions concerned and may even be costly blind alleys (Hugonnier 1999, 6).

With a growing recognition of the need for region-specific policy responses, and of the importance of regions as sources of competitive advantage and links to business centres abroad, a number of successful regional development policy frameworks have been adopted in other countries. These frameworks include: a shift towards 'community-based' or 'bottom-up' development models in which individual regions develop strategies for their own local needs; partnerships between all tiers of government, non-government organisations and business; flexible and responsive regional development agencies of government; and tailored special-assistance programmes for regions in particular need (Walsh 1999, 212-3; ACSWC 1999). The desire to be responsive to regional priorities and to strengthen regional foundations has seen a devolution of the responsibility for development strategy to the regional level, and a shift away from top-down, 'one-size-fits-all' approaches. Common to these frameworks has been an acknowledgment that, "reliance on market mechanisms alone will lead to a deterioration in the economic performance of poorer regions" (NIEIR 1999, 83).

In North America and in the European Union there has been an emerging trend of governments recognising that regional disadvantage requires "a blend of traditional and innovative arrangements" (Walsh 1999, 213). Reinvigorated regional development strategies have tended to include the following elements: the establishment of regional industry networks or clusters that can obtain economies of scale and expertise to compete internationally by working in partnership; accessible and affordable information and communications technologies; a focus on supporting the growth of existing small to medium sized enterprises, rather than seeking to attract external investment; co-ordination of the development of innovative and well researched regional development strategies; the creation of new businesses; regionally-focussed training and labour market programmes; enhancing social capital and the 'liveability' of regions; and the devolution of resources and planning responsibilities to local governments (NIEIR 1999, 84-104; Hugonnier 1999, 7-8).

Far from mandating a lessening of government involvement in regional development, these strategies necessitate a more flexible and invigorated response from governments at all levels. For example, the strategies identified above would require the following commitments by governments: regionally sensitive education and labour market programmes, especially linking training to the needs of firms; programmes to foster entrepreneurship; support for innovation and technology transfer; provision of secretariat and administrative support for business and community networks; support for the creation of regional economic development agencies and co-ordinating the formulation of development strategies; enhancing regional business environments; access to affordable finance and flexible capital markets; and international transport and telecommunications capacity.

The emphasis on community-based development and the role of local leadership certainly requires a heightened responsiveness and flexibility on the part of governments, but governmental responsibility is not lessened. Regional level strategies require Commonwealth infrastructure funding and co-ordination, adequate and responsive delivery of services in education and training, transport networks, communications, health and community facilities. Far from the platitudes of government as 'change agent' or 'facilitator', merely seeking to ameliorate structural adjustment, successful regional development policies require an active involvement on the part of governments at all levels (see ACSWC 1998).

The Special Role of Infrastructure

The crucial role of infrastructure provision was underscored by the conclusion of a recent Senate inquiry, which found that the continued development of infrastructure in the nation's regions is "central to the future equitable development of the Australian economy and society" (SSCSECNCP 2000, xvii). The place of infrastructure is of particular importance in a consideration of the Commonwealth's responsibilities, as the provision of physical or 'economic' infrastructure, in roads, transport and communications, has traditionally been Federal Governments' principal contribution to regional development (PC 1999c, 318).

However, since the mid 1970s there has been a substantial deterioration in public infrastructure spending (Quiggin 1996, 162). It is now beyond question that "Australia has been living off the benefits of past infrastructure spending and failing to invest adequately in the prospective growth of its regions" (Latham 1998, 116). Given the evidence of the positive relationship between private sector productivity and public capital investment (Aschauer 1990), and the demonstrable link between infrastructure investment and employment growth, the Federal Government must take heed of the Regional Australia Summit's recommendation of large increases in public infrastructure investment spending:

While the private sector is playing an increasingly important role in infrastructure provision and management, there still remains a massive gap in public infrastructure investment, one that will take an unprecedented and sustained effort to rectify...a quantum step should be taken to identify and to support a sustained and long-term programme of infrastructure development which incorporates sensible plans, a partnership role between governments at all levels and the private sector (2000, 8).

Infrastructure investment in many of the regions identified here can be expected to generate substantial employment growth and underpin a favourable environment for private investment and the development of new industries. Much is required to be done. In view of the new economic realities of an open and internationally integrated economy, where regions are increasingly recognised as sources of competitive advantage, Federal Governments should certainly fund transport and high speed information technology and telecommunications infrastructure.

Federal Governments must resist the urge for 'bursts of enthusiasm' that would see the commencement of small numbers of ad hoc, 'big ticket' infrastructure projects. While such projects would be welcomed, Government should instead plan for sustained infrastructure spending tailored to the needs identified by regions themselves and assist in the co-ordination of such planning. Regional representatives have repeatedly pressed for co-ordinated infrastructure planning across all tiers of government and for reform of the consultation and approval processes in the delivery of infrastructure (Walsh 1999, 219-20).

...the Government should instead plan for sustained infrastructure spending tailored to the needs identified by regions themselves and assist in the co-ordination of such planning

The Time Running Out report has responded to this call by recommending that the Department of Transport and Regional Services work with all tiers of government to develop 'whole of government and 'whole of region' integrated, co-ordinated and strategic infrastructure planning, and assist local government in this endeavour. Further, the report recommends the establishment of a National Infrastructure Advisory Council, to facilitate the equitable provision of national infrastructure by both the public and private sectors (HRSCPIRS 2000, 31).

Similarly, the Summit recommended the establishment of a 'Strategic Investment Co-ordinator', responsible to the Prime Minister, to develop and guide a rolling ten-year national plan for infrastructure development. These conclusions are certainly to be welcomed. In October 1999 the Regional Australia Summit called for a "comprehensive and convincing response to the challenges facing regional Australia" (2000, ii). A year later, such a response is yet to materialise.

The Decline of Service Provision and the Place of Australia's Rural and Remote Regions

A comprehensive response from Government must also consider two related regional issues: the regional impacts of the rationalisation of services provided by both the public and private sectors; and corporate responsibilities in the economic context of globalisation.

Virtually all regions have experienced either the rationalisation of services or, in the case of rapidly growing lifestyle-based regions in coastal areas, the under provision of services. However, a haemorrhaging of services has occurred in rural and resource-based regions (ACSWC 2000). For example, between 1993 and 1998, 481 non-metropolitan bank branches closed, resulting in the loss of some 10,000 positions (HREOC 1999, 16). Fuel is significantly more expensive in rural and remote areas and there have also been a large number of service station closures. In telecommunications and technology access, reports by the Australian Communications Authority and the Federal Government's Telecommunications Service Inquiry have found significant problems in rural service provision. In relation to education services, the HREOC National Inquiry into Rural and Remote Education has documented a series of failures by governments to provide education to rural regions comparable with that of urban areas, and that Indigenous children and students are at a particular disadvantage (2000). There is clearly an obvious need for equity in the provision of essential services in these rural and remote regions.

In large measure dependent on the economic fortunes of a particular industry, remote communities have often been unable to cope with the downturn or closure of a principal employer. This has then had flow-on effects for other services provided in the community which may then become non-viable and, in turn, forced to close. The depopulation of smaller rural communities often means a reduced demand for goods and services supplied by the retail sector of the rural townships. The withdrawal of services has therefore been both a cause and an effect of high unemployment in rural regions, and a key element in the 'spiral of decline' that has lead to the demise of some communities.

Governments therefore have a crucial role in guaranteeing some basic level of public sector employment in these regions. Far from 'crowding out' private investment, public funding for basic infrastructure and services, including meeting the extra costs of distance, supports further economic activity and private sector investment. In these cases the government assumes the role of an 'indirect employer', to promote full employment and distributive justice (ACSWC 1999).

A number of initiatives by the Federal Government and the private sector have sought to assist rural and remote communities with essential services, including: funding for the establishment of Rural Transaction Centres; petrol price subsidies; the Regional Health Package, which has attempted to provide a comprehensive response to the health disadvantages of rural Australians; and the re-emergence of rural bank branches offering traditional over-the-counter services in some communities. These are welcome, if largely piecemeal initiatives.

Corporate Responsibilities

The obscenity of corporations blithely shedding labour, together with the spectacle of multinationals pitting state governments against each other in competition for scarce jobs, raises the crucial issue of corporate responsibilities in the context of globalisation. Telstra took the belated decision to mollify public opinion by insulating rural communities from its recent shedding of 10,000 positions, but the burden will now fall entirely on metropolitan regions instead. Despite this, the scale of these losses can be expected to have drastic impacts on the lives of Telstra's (former) employees, their families and the communities in which they live. Clearly, corporations do not operate in isolation from the community and their decisions, above all in relation to employment levels, have significant consequences.

While it may once have been assumed that the interests of the nation and its largest corporations were synonymous, the open economy and international economic integration have shattered this relationship. With corporations now enjoying more international mobility, there is a lessening of corporate attachment to particular states and regions. Furthermore, it has recently been reasserted that in fact corporations have no wider social obligations (Johns 2000). Hence, there is a "a need for government policy to develop stronger safeguards against the immorality of corporate behaviour" (Latham 1998, 123). If globalisation has permitted greater freedom, then corporations must also have regard for their heightened responsibilities. Governments should use their regulatory and funding powers to ensure that corporations have regard for the spatial dimension of their employment decisions. Furthermore, Latham suggests that a sharpened 'business welfare' approach ought to be used to ensure corporations comply with pre-agreed social obligations in return for any public assistance: "In their interaction with the taxation, regulatory and funding policies of government, firms should have to provide a guarantee that any publicly provided benefits will be used to actually create employment" (1998, 124).

Globalisation, Regional Development and the Common Good

Following two decades of neoliberal economic reform Australia may indeed enjoy a more productive and wealthy economy in aggregate, but this has been achieved at considerable cost. Regions have suffered as a direct consequence of these reforms, resulting in extraordinary hardship in some cases, disadvantage has become entrenched and inequalities have grown. The Catholic Church maintains that social justice "explicitly requires that, with the growth of the economy, there occurs a corresponding social development ensuring that all classes of citizens will benefit equitably from an increase in national wealth" (Mater et magistra, n73). To reduce regional inequalities, it is requested of governments that, "they intervene in a wide variety of economic affairs, and that in a more extensive and organised way than heretofore, they adapt institutions, tasks, means and procedures to this end" (Mater et magistra, n54).

Regional development strategies that are limited to growth derived from individual initiative alone, and subject to the free play of market forces, are devoid of social concern for the disparities in the distribution of wealth and opportunity that result. In Populorum progressio, Pope Paul VI speaks of the role of the state in guiding successful development:

Individual initiative alone and the mere free play of competition could never assure successful development. One must avoid the risk of increasing still more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong...Hence programmes are necessary in order to encourage, stimulate, co-ordinate, supplement and integrate. It pertains to public authorities to choose, even to lay down the objectives to be pursued, the ends to be achieved, and the means for attaining these, and it is for them to stimulate all the forces engaged in this common activity (n33).

Beyond the provision of public services and programmes to encourage and stimulate economic growth, the Federal Government has a duty to co-ordinate and collaborate with other levels of government, regional communities and the private sector, a full range of policies that benefit disadvantaged regions (ACSWC 1999).

The Federal Government is charged with responsibility for the common good and must commit itself to a reinvigorated regional development policy framework. This must encompass co-ordination of region-specific development strategies; sustained infrastructure spending responsive to regional demand; as well as a wide range of regional industry policies and proactive labour market programmes.

The Federal Government is charged with responsibility for the common good and must commit itself to a reinvigorated regional development policy framework

The Catholic Church recognises also that the new reality of globalisation is having powerful impacts throughout the world. While globalisation offers real opportunities, at the same time it exacerbates economic exclusion, extreme job insecurity and unemployment. Pope John Paul II observes that the consequences of globalisation, "depends on certain basic decisions: whether 'globalisation' serves humanity, and every human, or exclusively benefits a development that is not governed by the principles of solidarity, participation or responsible subsidiarity" (2000b).

While the Church calls for a new culture, rules and institutions at the world level, globalisation must also be managed wisely within nations, such as Australia, where globalisation is having diverse impacts at a regional level.

Conscious of the new economic context and in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, governments ought to devolve primary responsibility for regional development planning to the regions concerned. This principle does not however provide a justification for the withdrawal of government intervention to the degree that communities' viability and potential for self determination is undermined (ACSWC 1999). On the contrary, governments are responsible for establishing the preconditions to develop communities, investment and programmes that "favour and help private enterprise...in order to allow private citizens themselves to accomplish as much as is feasible" (Mater et magistra, n152).

The massive scale of job shedding that has accompanied the rationalisation of government services, privatisation and restructuring of private enterprise, and which has disproportionately affected certain regions, is scandalous. Any system that views human labour as simply a factor of production and that seeks economic growth by undermining the value of work, or a fair level of remuneration, cannot be seen as a just or equitable course of development (Laborem excercens, nn7, 8, 17-19). On the occasion of the Jubilee of Workers in May of this year, Pope John Paul urged that "[a]ll must work to ensure that the economic system in which we live does not upset the fundamental order of the priority of work over capital, of the common good over private interest" (2000a).

In his encyclical Centesimus annus Pope John Paul warns of an idolatrous commitment to unbridled market processes. While restating that the "free market" remains "the most efficient instrument for utilising resources and effectively responding to needs", Pope John Paul is concerned that a just and open market be recognised properly as an economic tool and placed at the service of human freedom in its totality (nn34, 42). The Pope cautions that an economic tool must never be elevated to an ideology, which he warns will most surely lead to the emergence of injustices (n39; McCormick 1994, 139). In the contemporary Australian context, a pervasive neoliberalism, the strategies of structural economic reform and competition policy in particular, have arguably assumed such a status.

The perverse consequences of the hegemony of this view have been exemplified by the observations of one Government member, who has stated that rather than providing adequate social services to "minority rent-seekers" in remote regions, it would simply be "better to encourage them to move to areas of high productivity" (Grattan 2000 & McKew 2000). More than displaying an insulting indifference to regional hardship, this view implies rendering regional communities subservient to economic forces, rather than working to assist such communities become the protagonists of their own future. The perversity of this perspective lies in its acquiescence in the fatality of blind market mechanisms, that ought properly to be placed at the service of a responsible regional development. Furthermore, these views would seem to proceed from a rejection of government responsibility for the common good, for upholding distributive justice, and an insensitivity to the place of regional communities in the life of the nation.

Conclusion: Australia's Globalised Regions

While the Federal Government has recently rediscovered regional Australia, the challenges posed by globalisation demand a new regional policy framework. Such a framework must proceed from a recognition of the spatial dimension of economic activity in an open and internationally integrated economy, and seek to break the cycles of locational disadvantage. Regional policy must therefore actively address region-specific needs. Responsibility for devising development plans must be devolved to the various regional communities concerned, in recognition of regional diversity and the principle of subsidiarity. The Federal Government must however assist regions in the co-ordination of planning, and simultaneously commit to a full range of programmes - especially for infrastructure and service provision - to provide employment, stimulate economic growth and assist private enterprise within regional communities. Policies emphasising 'self-reliance' or resourcing 'local leadership' will be entirely insufficient for the renewal of these regions.

The distributional consequences for regions of economic reforms must henceforth be considered as integral in designing policy, not merely as an afterthought. An implicit acceptance that some regions and their communities may suffer for the benefit of the economy as a whole must be flatly rejected. In an open economy, the Federal Government, in co-operation with the states, must also be aggressive in ensuring corporations meet commonly agreed social obligations in order to create regionally sensitive employment and put an end to vast and obscene job shedding.

The context of globalisation requires that the activities of governments be recast in important ways, but the responsibility for the common good, for distributive justice and in particular for the nation's most impoverished regions, remains inviolate.

---

References

Aschauer, D., 1990, Public Investment and Private Sector Growth. Washington D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.

Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1999, Regional Statistics, Tasmania, 1999, Catalogue No. 1362.6. Canberra: AusInfo.

Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1999, Australia in Profile: A Regional Analysis, Catalogue No. 2032.0. Canberra: AusInfo.

Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission, 2000, A Litany of Disadvantage: Rural Communities of Australia, Discussion Paper No. 15. Canberra: ACSWC.

Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission, 1999, 'Regional Unemployment and the Indirect Employer: Beyond the Principle of Self-Reliance', Common Wealth, Vol. 7, No. 2. Canberra: ACSWC.

Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission, 1998, Valuing Rural Communities: An Invigorated Approach to Rural Development
Policy, Discussion Paper No. 13. Canberra: ACSWC.

Australian Local Government Association, 1999, Submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Regional Services Inquiry into Infrastructure and the Development of Australia's Regional Areas. Submission No. 131.

Bell, S., 1997, Ungoverning the Economy: The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy. Melbourne: OUP.

Boreham, P. et. al., 1999, Room to manoeuvre: Political aspects of full employment. Melbourne: MUP.

Centesimus annus ('On the One Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum'), 1991, Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II. Sydney: St Pauls.

Commonwealth of Australia, 2000, Government Response to the Productivity Commission Report on the Impact of Competition Policy reforms on Rural and Regional Australia, August. Canberra: Office of the Treasurer.

Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Australia, 1999, Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia. Submission No. 200.

Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, 2000, Small Area Labour Markets Australia: June Quarter 2000. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

Dollery, B. & Soul, S., 2000, 'A note on Australian local government and regional economic and social inequalities', Australian Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 35, No. 2.

Grattan, M., 2000, 'Blacksmith's grandson hammers Banjo Patersons of the bush', Sydney Morning Herald, 16 March.

Gregory, R. & Hunter, B., 1996, 'Increasing Regional Inequality and the Decline of Manufacturing'. In: Sheehan, P. et. al. (Eds.), Dialogues on Australia's Future. Melbourne: Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University.

Harding, A., 2000, 'Globalisation has expanded the regional divide', The Australian, 21 June.

House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Regional Services, 2000, Time Running Out: Shaping Regional Australia's Future - Report of the inquiry into infrastructure and the development of Australia's regional areas. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

Hugonnier, B., 1999, 'Regional Development Tendencies in OECD Countries'. Address to the Regional Australia Summit. October. Territorial Development Service, OECD. Available [Online] <http://www.dotrs.gov.au/regional/summit/> [16 October 2000].

Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, 2000, Emerging Themes: National Inquiry into Rural and Remote Education. Sydney: HREOC.

Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, 1999, Bush Talks. Sydney: HREOC.

Jesuit Social Services, Ignatius Centre for Social Policy and Research, 1999, Unequal in Life: the distribution of social disadvantage in Victoria and New South Wales. Melbourne: Jesuit Social Services.

Johns, G., 2000, 'Corporations are not citizens', Australian Financial Review, 1 September.

Kain, J., 1995, 'Hilmer, the National Competition Policy: A Layperson's Introduction', Research Note, No. 35, November. Canberra: Parliamentary Research Service, Department of the Parliamentary Library.

Laborem Excercens ('On Human Work'), 1981, Encyclical letter of Pope John Paul II. Sydney: St Pauls.

Latham, M., 1998, Civilising Global Capital. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

L'Osservatore Romano, 2000, 'Workers must enjoy minimum level of humane working conditions', N.10 (1633), 8 March.

Mater et magistra ('Christianity and Social Progress'), 1961, Encyclical letter of Pope John XXIII. Sydney: St Pauls.

McCormick, P., 1994, 'Centesimus Annus'. In: Dwyer, J. A. (Ed.), The New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press.

McKew, M., 2000, 'Interview with Ross Cameron', The Bulletin, 25 April.

Meredith, D. & Dyster B., 1999, Australia in the Global Economy: Continuity and Change. Cambridge: CUP.

Nahan, M., 2000, 'Prunning the dead wood for prosperity', Australian Financial Review, 8 September.

National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, 2000a, 'Regional Divide? A Study of Incomes in Regional Australia', Paper presented at the 29th Conference of Economists, Gold Coast, 3 - 6 July. Canberra: NATSEM, University of Canberra.

National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, 2000b, Income Distribution Report, Issue 12, May. Canberra: NATSEM, University of Canberra.

National Institute of Economic and Industry Research, 1999, State of the Regions. Melbourne: NIEIR.

New South Wales Standing Committee on State Development, 1999, Terms of Reference: Inquiry into Opportunities for Strengthening Rural Towns in New South Wales, September. Sydney: NSW Legislative Council.

Pope John Paul II, 2000a, 'Jubilee of Workers: Build a society that respects human work', L'Osservatore Romano, N. 19, 10 May.

Pope John Paul II, 2000b, 'Globalization must always serve man', L'Osservatore Romano, N. 19, 10 May.

Populorum progressio ('The Development of Peoples'), 1967, Encyclical letter of Pope Paul VI. Boston: St Paul Editions.

Probert, B., 1994, 'Globalisation, economic restructuring and the state'. In: Bell, S. & Head, B. (Eds.), State, Economy and Public Policy in Australia. Melbourne: OUP.

Productivity Commission, 2000, Review of Australia's General Tariff Arrangements: Draft Report. Canberra: AusInfo.

Productivity Commission, 1999a, Microeconomic Reforms and Australian Productivity: Exploring the Links, Commission Research Paper Volume 1. Canberra: AusInfo.

Productivity Commission, 1999b, Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia: Supplement to Inquiry Report. Canberra: AusInfo.

Productivity Commission, 1999c, Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia: Draft Report. Canberra: AusInfo.

Productivity Commission, 1998, Aspects of Structural Change in Australia. Canberra: AusInfo.

Quiggin, J., 1998, Submission to the Senate Select Committee on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy. Submission No. 91.

Quiggin, J., 1996, Great Expectations: Microeconomic reform and Australia. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin.

Regional Australia Summit Steering Committee, 2000, Interim Report. Available [Online] <http://www.dotrs.gov.au/regional/summit/> [9 October 2000].

Regional Australia Summit, 1999, Report of Working Group 5 on 'Government'. Available [Online] <http://www.dotrs.gov.au/ regional/summit/> [27 September 2000].

Saunders, P., 1999, 'Delivering effective adjustment assistance'. In Structural Adjustment - Exploring the Policy Issues, Productivity Commission Workshop Proceedings, Canberra, 21 May. Canberra: AusInfo.

Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education References Committee, 1999, Jobs For The Regions: A report on the inquiry into regional employment and unemployment, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

Senate Select Committee on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy, 2000, Riding the Waves of Change. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

Senate Select Committee on the Socio-Economic Consequences of the National Competition Policy, 1999, Competition Policy: Friend or Foe, Economic Surplus, Social Deficit? - Interim Report. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

Sorensen, T., 2000, 'Regional Development: Some Issues for Policy Makers', Research Paper, No. 26, 27 June. Canberra: Parliamentary Library, Commonwealth of Australia.

Stewart, J., 1994, The Lie of the Level Playing Field. Melbourne: Reed Books.

Tanner, L., 1999, Open Australia. Sydney: Pluto Press.

Tasmania's West North West Councils, 1998, Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Impact of Competition Policy Reforms on Rural and Regional Australia. Submission No. 45.

Walsh, C., 1999, 'Structural adjustment: a mainly regional development perspective'. In Structural Adjustment - Exploring the Policy Issues, Productivity Commission Workshop Proceedings, Canberra, 21 May. Canberra: AusInfo.

Wanna, J. & Withers, G., 2000, 'Creating capability: combining economic and political rationalities in industry and regional policy'. In: Davis, G. & Keating, M. (Eds.), The Future of Governance. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

West and North West Tasmania's Regional Councils, 1999, Submission to House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Regional Services Inquiry into Infrastructure and the Development of Australia's Regional Areas. Submission No. 229.

 

The Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission is established by the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference with a mandate of advocacy, co-ordination, support, research and advice in the field of social welfare. As part of this mandate, the Commission issues public statements and promotes public discussion on the understanding that views expressed in the statements are its own.

 8Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission, 2000

This work is copyright. It may be reproduced in whole or in part for research, study or training purposes subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgement of the source and no commercial usage or sale. Reproduction for purposes other than those covered above, requires the written permission of the ACSWC. Inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to: The Publications Officer, ACSWC, PO Box 326, CURTIN ACT 2605.

Email: admin@acswc.org.au Web: www.acswc.org.au

ISSN: 1039-0049