The Re-emergence of Regional Policy and Planning in Western Australia

摘要

Regional development has long been an important policy concern in Western Australia. As the nation's largest state, covering approximately one-third of Australia's landmass (2.5 million square kilometres), it exhibits considerable environmental, economic and social diversity. It is also a state where primary industries are the key drivers of the economy, particularly agriculture, mining and, to a lesser extent, forestry and fisheries. While these activities are located almost exclusively in non-metropolitan regions, population and capital tend to accumulate in the state's major metropolitan region, Perth. Indeed, of the 1.8 million people living in Western Australia, 1.3 million (72%) live in the Perth metropolitan area (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2004). At the same time, non-metropolitan areas contribute 82% of Western Australia's export income (Department of Local Government and Regional Development, 2003a). This disparity raises an inevitable tension in Western Australian politics and policy making, with regional areas often arguing that the concentration of public investment in infrastructure and services in the Perth metropolitan area is at the expense of those regions that generate the majority of the state's export income. For much of its history, the State Government of Western Australia dealt with this tension through a series of policies based loosely around the principles of regional economic balance and socio-spatial equity, thereby attempting to ensure that certain regions were not 'left behind' at the expense of others (Tonts & Jones, 1997). There was also a focus on developing industries based on Western Australia's natural resources, since the state's isolation and small population meant that large-scale secondary industries, such as manufacturing, were unlikely to be competitive with other 'core' Australian or Asian regions (Bolton, 1982). Thus, much of the investment in regional development was focused on non-metropolitan areas. The provision of agricultural land for settlers, financial support for farming through credit and subsidies, the construction of railways and other transport infrastructure, government subsidies to the mining industry, and the generous provision of rural social services were central to this strategy.