Australian state proposes student debt relief for lawyers willing to practice in rural places

"Bold new plan to get more lawyers to go to the bush," is the headline for this radio story by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last week.  That "bold" plan involves helping lawyers pay their student loans if they're practicing in a rural, remote or regional area of Australia.  

Here's the promotional blurb: 

There's a dire shortage of lawyers in regional Australia and it's having devastating impacts on people’s everyday lives. One group is proposing a bold plan to try and entice lawyers to ditch the city and go bush. Brett McGrath is President of the Law Society of New South Wales and he tells ABC Newsradio’s Tom Oriti about how waiving student debt could make a big difference.

Here's a compelling excerpt from the interview, after the interviewee, Brett McGrath, notes the disparity between what solicitors can earn in the city and in the country: 

We have some solicitors in rural and regional New South Wales who are paying admin assistants more than they're paying themselves because they're trying to meet overheads week to week, and we are the most heavily regulated profession in the country.  We have ethical obligations.  We have reporting requirements.  And most [solicitors] are employing people.  They're employers so they have to go through workplace employment legislation.  They have all these obligations so they're really struggling to make  ends meet. ... 

I'm the President of the Law Society.  It took me seven years working full time in southwest Sydney and working as a lecturer at a university--so working a second job--it took me seven years to pay off A$40,000 in Hecs.  So you can imagine... A$70,000 is the average now... so with cost of living pressures and rental and all those sort of things... it's a big problem and that's why we think this is a solution that can address that need, particularly for rural and regional areas and make it really attractive for solicitors to come and set their practices up.  

Interviewer:  

If you're a lawyer who will go to the regions to help ease that shortage you'll get your HECS-help fees waived, and if you've already made contributions, they're refunded.  Is that right? 

McGrath:

So, it has its anchor point from the Commonwealth's own review into legal assistance which called for having solicitors who moved to rural, regional and remote areas as a baseline having 45% of their work legal aid work or they work for a Community Legal Centre ... We say that should be a baseline.  We think at the Law Society of New South Wales that should be taken to the next level because of what we're seeing on the ground in rural and regional areas of New South Wales but also across the country that it should be extended to anyone who wants to move to set their practice up and start their careers in regional areas should have their hex waived.  

There are similar schemes to attract teachers, to attract doctors and nurses to regional areas.... We see law and access to justice as a critical part of our infrastructure and services we provide.  

Lismore (New South Wales) is a great example where in disaster zones people are in trouble ... they reach out.  Who do they turn to?  They turn to their solicitor when they're in need. 

Interviewer: 

Have you put that [expensive proposal for debt relief] to the government?  Have you had any response? 

McGrath:  

We've suggested that it'll cost about A$6 million in the first year, and that's ... for the base program.  The first port of call is to have those with 45% of their work in legal aid and in Community Legal Centres so that's about A$6 million and we've put that to the federal government and the Law Council of Australia has ... put that forward as a proposal to the commonwealth.  

Interviewer:  

Any Response?  

McGrath:  

We're waiting on a response.  

Whose land is it anyway? Why South Australian farmland has no protection against mining.

As it currently stands within the 1971 Mining Act of South Australia, farmers have no right to veto mining activities over their land. When extractive minerals are found, or believed to be located, on farmland, the land owners are required to hand their land over to the government, where it is sold on to mining corporations. Why? Because section 16 of the Mining Act specifies that all minerals rights are held by the Crown (the governing authority of Australian law at both a State and Federal level). 

All decision making power with relation to mineral lies with the Minister for Energy and Mining, meaning they have the ability to grant mining related licences over private land without needing to seek permission from the land owner. This inequitable balance powered by statute has, and will, continue to inflict harm upon the farming industry throughout South Australia. 

A lack of power to prevent corporate destruction to farmland is the sort of nightmare fuel that breeds a lack of trust between the government and its people. I guess the most appropriate question to ask in this situation is, if you can't say no to someone ripping up your land, then is it really your land at all?

I have very few bad things to say about South Australia. It has been my home for almost all of my 24 years of life. It is host to incredible wine regions, farm and river land, outback spectacles and the second biggest annual arts festival in the world. However, when it comes to the South Australian government and its undying love for mining, there is no possibility of coming in between them, regardless of what harm may ensue. This is something that makes my blood boil to a level I simply cannot put into words. 

To try and give you an idea of how highly valued mining is within South Australia, in the March quarter of 2023 alone, the government spent AUD$64.2 million on mineral exploration (scouting and searching areas for extractive minerals). This broke an 11-year long Australian record of $61 million, which was also set by South Australia in the December quarter of 2012. 

While $64.2 million sounds like an obscene amount of government money to spend on just the exploration purpose, South Australia is a treasure trove of undiscovered minerals and highly valued finite resources. Evidence for the presence of such resources is Olympic Dam: one of the most significant mineral deposits in the world.

Olympic Dam (owned and operated by BHP) is located around 350 miles from the state's capital, Adelaide, it has roughly 435 miles of underground roads that run throughout the mine and is estimated to be worth anywhere between AUD$4.9 - $5.4 billion according to the Australian Financial Review. Olympic Dam is such a significant site that the town of Roxby Downs was purposefully established and built to support the mine. 

At its most successful, the South Australian mining industry generated AUD$7.3 billion in a single financial year, meaning it holds an undeniably significant value to South Australia's economy. With revenue like this, it is easy to understand why the government would hold such a destructive industry close to its heart.

It's hard to imagine that another single industry could provide a more influential value to a State than mining does. After all, mining's where the money is, right? To a certain extent yes, but South Australian farmers would argue otherwise.

In the 2021/22 financial year, South Australia's agribusiness and primary industries^ generated $10 billion MORE than the mining industry did at its peak. Coming in at a whopping AUD$17.3 billion in revenue, South Australia's agricultural industry increased its revenue by almost $2 billion in a single year (after the previous all time high of $15.4 billion in the 2020/21 financial year). Within this enormous figure, field crops came in as the biggest contributor with $5.6 billion, followed by livestock with $4.1 billion and wine with $2.4 billion. 

An absolute necessity for the agricultural industry is arable farmland. Healthy top-layer soil and everything below is the key to successful crop growth. Crop growth is not just used for harvesting food, but also animal feeding, grazing land and vineyards. Without healthy soil, there is no possibility for the land to be used for agricultural purposes. 

When privately owned farmland is purchased by mining corporations, there is a statutory requirement that mining corporations are required to have an approved Program for Environmental Protection and Rehabilitation ('PEPR') prior to the commencement of any extractive project. These programs are designed to promote a greater level of environmental responsibility, by requiring corporations to restore land after an extraction project has completed. 

While there are legislative mechanisms for enforcement of these programs, the penalties in place for non-compliance are shockingly insignificant compared to the revenue mining corporations generate. Failure to comply with a PEPR will result in a maximum civil penalty of AUD$250,000. Using Olympic Dam as an example (but note they are governed by their own statute), it would take BHP just under 2.5 minutes to generate the $250,000 needed to cover the penalty (calculations below). 

So why does the government impose such pathetic penalties? Why does the government place a higher value on land use for mining over agriculture? It's simple: the government is entitled to royalties from all extracted minerals due to Crown ownership. 

In the 2019/20 financial year, the South Australian government received AUD$311 million in mining royalties. While I understand the government needs all the financial support they can receive, this also showcases an absolute inability for sustainable, long term economic consideration. Profits now, will lead to detriment for the future of South Australia's economy if farmland continues to be surrendered for mining practices.

In my humble opinion, Western Australia is operating decades ahead of everyone else. Section 29 of the Western Australian Mining Act affords land owners the power to veto any form of mining activity proposed to affect the surface of their land. This statutory protection not only protects Western Australia's agricultural industry and economy, it also protects the wellbeing of its farmers. This is a legislative provision that while being small, hands over significant power to farmers and more importantly, demonstrates to them that their government cares. 

So where should South Australia go from here? Allowing farmers the power to veto mining activity over their land is the bare minimum that can be enforced to protect South Australia's agricultural industry. Once farmland has been contaminated by mining practices, it is near impossible to recover the land to its original condition. The practice of mining transforms farmland into a finite resource - once it has been used for mining, it will never be useable for agricultural purposes again. 

These farmers need a safeguard. They need their government to listen to them and support them. The South Australian government needs to walk away from their money hungry attitudes and begin to look after the agricultural powerhouse they are privileged to have at their finger tips. 

What I would say to the government if they could hear me - shame on you and your ignorance. Your lack of awareness on the destructive nature of mining is simply embarrassing. Farming matters. The sooner you wake up and realise this, the better off our State will be. 

If you wish to read more about the importance of Australia's agricultural industry, I explored live animal exports in Western Australia, in previously published posts available here and here. 

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^'Primary industries' is the collective term used for South Australia's field crops & grains, livestock, wine, horticulture, forestry, dairy, seafood, wool and animal feed industries. 

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Calculations:

For the 2021/22 financial year, BHP reported earnings of AUD$57 billion.  

The mine operates 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.

This generates approximately $156 million per day, $6.5 million per hour and $108,00 per minute.

108,000 x 2.5 = 270,00 

Therefore, just under 2.5 minutes to earn enough to cover a $250,000 penalty. 

Moving backwards - Australia votes no for the indigenous voice to parliament

On Saturday 14 October, Australia was faced with a monumental opportunity to amend their Constitution with the nation's 45th referendum. The proposal was to recognise Australia's indigenous people - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders - through a constitutionally enshrined body that provides non-binding advice to Parliament. This body is known as 'The Voice'. 

The Voice has been a project in the works since 2017, when the Uluru Statement from the Heart was presented to Australian's. The Statement was devised by a 16-member Referendum Council that travelled around Australia to consult with indigenous Australian's in regional areas, about what they believed would be the best step forward in creating a more equal future. The purpose of the Statement is for indigenous Australian's to actually be given the opportunity to have input over policies that directly effect on them. 

In the Referendum Council's final report released in 2017, they put forward two recommendations:

1. Constitutional reform to implement an advisory body that represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; and

2. An extra-constitutional Declaration of Recognition enacted by legislation. 

After seven years of discussion, the first recommendation has finally been acted upon - but not in the way it was intended.

For what could ultimately be deemed as the most important referendum in Australian history, the 'Yes' campaign has been provided an immensely disappointing lack of promotion by the Australian government, while also having to battle against a wave of false information disseminated through various media platforms. The failure to adequately promote The Voice has left a frightening portion of the Australian population completely unaware of what it is, where it came from and most importantly, why it's desperately needed. 

To my absolute shock and horror, an alarming number of those unaware to The Voice are indigenous Australian's living in rural and remote areas. Yes, you read that correctly. The knowledge of The Voice that has been devised as an incredibly important mechanism to represent indigenous Australian's, has not been provided to Indigenous Australian's in remote areas. If this doesn't illustrate the inequality of the urban- rural divide, I really don't know what will. 

For a population that is already disadvantaged with basic, fundamental human rights such as access to health care and education, it appears that the remote Indigenous population is being further discriminated against based on their geographical location. While it can be argued this is not an intentional form of discrimination, it also demonstrates the lack of access to basic resources that rural populations face. 

Paul Kabai, an environmental activist based in Torres Strait, explained that access to any source of reliable information regarding The Voice was an extreme challenge.  

Nothing has been explained to the elders here on the [Sabai] Island ... talking with people about voting, it's all 'what is this referendum vote all about? What is the no, what is the yes?' Voting is just around the corner and there is nothing. 

The burden of seeking information was placed upon the remote communities, but with some of these areas not even having knowledge of The Voice's existence in the first place, there wasn't even the option to self-educate. As a young, white woman, with both a tertiary and private school education, I have come to realise the absolute privilege I have to be informed about national politics. For what I thought was just a factor of everyday life, is actually something I have taken completely for granted - and for this I feel completely ashamed and embarrassed. 

The idea that a constitutionally recognised body, devised to represent me, as an attempt to create a more equal future after centuries of intergenerational trauma and discrimination, was not even brought to my knowledge is simply beyond comprehension. This is not only an example of geographical discrimination, this is a shameful representation of Australia and its care towards remote populations. 

The result of the referendum was released in the late hours Saturday evening - an overwhelming 60.05% vote against The Voice resulted from a majority no vote within all six states and one territory. The one territory to have a majority vote for yes was the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the home to the seat of the Australian government, and Australia's capital city, Canberra. 

I think it would be completely ignorant to believe that this is merely coincidental. At this point, it is well known that The Voice was not well promoted by the government and the push from the Yes campaign came far too late. The fact that the ACT has the easiest access to any parliamentary based information - with more than half of the population within the ACT are government workers - speaks volumes about what could have happened if every state and territory received the same amount of education. 

The ACT is known as Australia's only city-state. Almost all of its 472,000 population live within urban areas and its agricultural industry provides an insignificant input to the economy. As can be seen below, geographically, information doesn't have very far to travel within the ACT, which places them in a serious point of advantage when it comes to being educated on governmental based issues and incentives. 

Australian Capital Territory marked out on an Australian map. 

Image sourced from Getty Images.

While I strongly believe that self-education is the responsible thing to do when it comes to exercising your right to vote, the reality is, the majority of Australian's are lazy. If they are not spoon fed exactly what they need to know, they simply will not attempt anything further. The fact that the ACT voted yes isn't because they are most progressive out of all states and territories, its because they have the easiest access to all the relevant information.

A further factor of concern around the dissemination of information to rural areas, is that indigenous Australian's make up the majority of rural and remote populations. The lack of engagement with these remote communities has been expressed by Mulgyin Jaru-Kitja and Gooniyandi woman, Corina Martin, in what can only be described as an accurate, yet heart breaking summary:

That's a problem with anything to do with Aboriginal people, we are the last lot to get information on ourselves.

While there are strong arguments that The Voice wasn’t the best solution to centuries of abuse and oppression, it was going to be a step in the right direction and the platform for future development. The Australian government and politics has never been a perfect system. So why all of sudden are we wanting a perfect solution? 

As explored in a previous blog post, the theory of 'interest convergence' coined by an American law professor seems to be applicable in this circumstance. Black people only achieve civil rights victories only where white and black interests converge. White Australia has demonstrated in this referendum, that indigenous rights are not within their interests. 

Australia is allegedly the country of giving everyone a ‘fair go’; but this decision has showcased anything but. Just like the kangaroo and emu (our national animal and bird, which can only physically move forwards, not backwards) on the coat of arms, we are meant to be a nation that has the ability to only move forwards. Yet here we are, running back to our white, conservative origins.

Is this the end of an era? Live sheep exports expected to conclude in Australia (Part 2)

Picture this: You live in rolling paddocks of greenery with room to graze and freely roam. You live in family groups and have easy access to food, water and fresh air. You are looked after. There comes a day where, without warning, this is all taken away. You and your family are herded into a truck and are transported away from the last glimpse of comfort and freedom you'll ever have. 

More than a week later, you and your family are separated while being packed into a ship with thousands of others who are also riddled with stress from separation. There is no sunlight, no room to move and you are living on top of your own waste. One slip or injury could prevent you from reaching food and water, or risk you being unintentionally crushed to death by those around you. 

You exist in a permanent state of anxiety and terror. You have no idea what will happen next. 

You arrive on dry land, relieved to take in fresh air once again. The freedom is short lived before your legs are tied together and you're dragged along on your back before being thrown into the boot of a car. It's dark. The air is thin. You can barely move. You're being sent to a death that is slow, filled with pain and completely undignified. 

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Now picture this: you live in remote Western Australia and you own thousands of sheep that have no worth. They need to be watered, fed, shorn and have their health tended to. You have shearers begging you for work that you can't afford to give them. They have families they need to provide for. You also have a family that needs to be fed, children that need an education and bills that need to be paid. You are living below the poverty line in the middle of desolate country. With nothing else near by to supplement your income, you now face the reality of having to pack your life up into boxes and move away from everything you know. You need to find work so you can look after your family and afford the bare minimum, but all you've ever known is being a sheep farmer. So, now what?

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I can't argue that both sides of the coin in this circumstance don't have extremely justified reasons for protection. The welfare of animals should never be discredited and devalued simply because they aren't human. However, what I can argue, is there are people trying to make legislative decisions on an agricultural industry that they have little-to-no knowledge about. These decisions are being made in a politically motivated fashion, and the fallout for the rural population and local economy is going to be extremely harmful. 

In an article by the Australian Financial Review, it is believed that the value of Western Australian sheep is already beginning to decline, with an estimated loss of $21 million from 300,000 sheep to the Wagin economy alone. This loss also has an impact on the Australian government, which misses out on $5 million in tax revenue. 

Phillip Bright, a farmer and the Wagin Shire president, has also made the estimate that across the 15 million sheep across the entirety of Western Australian will come in at a $900 million loss. To put this into perspective, that value is almost the same as the GDP of Vanuatu. 

Western Australian rural families, small town communities and shearers need the live sheep export industry. This is their lifeline. This is their livelihood. It's what they live for. As Sarah Smarsh eloquently portrayed in her essay on 'What Growing Up on a Farm Taught Me About Humility', farming families are commonly perceived as being at the bottom of the food chain - despite the fact they significantly contribute to local economies, they receive little to no consideration when decisions that will directly impact them arise. You can read an exert of Sarah's essay on a previous blog post here.

What came as a surprise to me (as a result of my own unreasonable and naive assumption), is that in no way shape or form are sheep farmers endorsing the treatment that has been broadcast across the nation. There is no denial on their behalf that the attitude towards animal welfare has been completely neglected and that there are practical ways this can be addressed. 

These farmers weren't aware of the conditions their livestock were facing once they had left the safety of their stations. A fourth-generation farmer, Emily Stretch, was also shocked when seeing the undercover footage:

It horrified every single farmer I know, including myself. I can feel myself tearing up thinking about it ... I would never send my sheep to go on a ship overseas if I believed it was still happening. 

The reality is, you can introduce, implement and reform laws that have the intention and practicality of protecting livestock. But, there is no possible legislative avenue that will ensure the financial stability and wellbeing of the rural individuals and families that make up Western Australia's live sheep export industry. 

Regardless of any framework the Australian government can put in place to phase out the live sheep export industry, there is no possibility of a successful transition. 

The Australian government needs to know that their actions are going to have devastating consequences. They are making a conscious decision to disrupt and destroy the lives of rural communities that already exist as a low priority. A conscious decision to remove hundreds of millions of dollars from an already struggling economy. A conscious decision to prioritise politics over the people - and this is where the true suffering will occur. 

This post is the second part to a two-part series. You can access part one here. 

Is this the end of an era? Sheep exports expected to conclude in Australia (Part 1)

At its peak in 2017-2018, the Australian live sheep export industry was worth over $160 million USD, exporting a total of 2 million sheep. Following this record-breaking year, journalists found through footage released to Animals Australia by a whistle-blower that over 2,400 sheep died aboard a vessel owned by Emmanuel Exports. The cause of the deaths was overwhelming heat stress. 

Since this catastrophic event, the Australian media, animal welfare organisations and the general public have subjects the live sheep export industry to scrutiny. In an attempt to address the growing concerns, the Australian Liberal government introduced restrictions that reduced export ships capacity for livestock by 28%. Further to this, far greater penalties for those who 'seek profit from breaking export rules around stocking densities and poor animal welfare practices' were also introduced. The penalties, which are still in place, consist of a maximum of $4.2 million for companies and a maximum of $2.1 million for directors. 

Fast forward to 2022: The good intentions of the Liberal government have been completely forgotten. Undercover footage taken in overseas markets exposed the inhumane treatment of Australian livestock once they reached international shores. What was once an issue within Australian control has been transformed into an animal welfare concern that seemingly has one solution: ending live sheep exports out of Australia. 

Shatha Hamade, a solicitor for Animals Australia, released footage to the Australian Broadcasting Commission's 7:30 Report. She captured it by posing as a buyer within Middle Eastern meat markets and livestock yards. The footage displayed highly distressing and shocking content of sheep being mistreated and sold illegally in Oman. 

A question that bounces around a lot is why don't we just introduce legislation to protect the treatment of sheep for live exports? Well, there's already regulations in place - the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System ('ECAS'). The problem is that it doesn't appear to be working. With the absence of appropriate civil penalties, corporations have significant leeway to not satisfy the regulations. This idea will be explored through part 2 of this blog series. 

Australia is the only country out of 100 livestock exporting nations that has a regulatory framework in place for the protection of their animals' welfare once they have arrived in the importing country. This, however, begs the question: do the ESCAS regulations even have any effect in international territory? As Hamade eloquently stated;

[E]ffective regulatory framework is only as good as it is policed and enforced, and ESCAS is not policed by the Australian government. 

The intention of the 7:30 Report exposé was to evoke an emotional response from the general public (similar to a discussion on another one of our blog posts which can be found here), who in turn, would place pressure upon the government for legislative reform. 

A petition with more than 43,000 signatures in support of a legislative end date to live sheep export was put before the Labour government on 31 August 2023. This petition has been one of the largest in the last year, and it is ranked within the top 45 most signed petitions in Australian history. The Labour government yet to release their public repsonse to the petition, but it is anticipated this will occur soon. 

Prior to watching the 7:30 Report piece, I had a complete and utter moral aversion to the Labour government's electoral promise to end live sheep exports. From my family's involvement within Australia's rural and agricultural media industry, I have developed an immense appreciation for Australian farmers and livestock. The thought of ending a multimillion-dollar industry that plays such an important role for Australian agriculture seems completely ludicrous. 

The very concept means thousands of Australians would be stranded with a specific skill set and nowhere to go. That doesn't even take into account the local economies that would take an absolute battering. With 97% of all sheep exports departing out of Western Australian ports, it's highly likely that smaller Western Australian towns would become destitute. 

The harsh reality I have come to terms with is that the footage shown on the 7:30 report is not a once-off act. Nor is it something that has arisen in the last 5-10 years. The mistreatment of exported sheep has been an ongoing catastrophe that has been completely swept under the rug for decades, because the only parties who previously knew about it are the ones who are making the profits. 

There comes a time sooner or later where you have to ask yourself, when is enough, enough? How much longer are we going to tolerate the mistreatment of livestock? It their torturous suffering really a good trade-off for our profit?

It appears that all conceivable efforts to find a balance between being able to assure adequate livestock elfare and continuing to practice live exports, has potentially been exhausted. Further amendments could take the form of increased civil penalties for non-compliance - however, this avenue wouldn't necessarily have the desired effect. 

Much like Australian penalties for non-compliance within mining practices, million-dollar penalties for large corporations merely acts as a deterrence for non-compliance, as the potential financial penalty is an insignificant amount in comparison to the revenue they generate. There are many circumstances where it is more beneficial for corporations to breach legislation regulations and pay a penalty than not to commit the breach at all (such as the Rio Tinto destruction of a 46,000 year old Indigenous Australian site). I fear that the penalties introduced in 2018 dud exactly that, and any further increase would have very little impact. 

At the end of the day, the real decision to make is one of a moral dilemma: do we place a higher value on the livelihood of animals or people? This idea will be explored through the second part of this blog series. 

If you wish to gain further insight on Australia's live sheep export industry, you can biew stories from the Australian Broadcasting Commission here, here and here. 

New Zealand study finds rural elderly face "latent precarity"

 This piece, titled "Rurality and latent precarity: Growing older in a small rural New Zealand town" was recently published by the Journal of Rural Studies.  The abstract follows: 

Behind rural lives lurk several forms of latent precarity that are unique to rural dwellers and rural contexts. Latent precarities may never become actualised or experienced, and the expression of latent precarity can be mitigated by both individual and community resources. For older rural dwellers, the latent precarities associated with rural life intersect with those associated with ageing and when experienced or actualised, can impact on an individual's ability to successfully ‘age in place’ within their rural community. We interviewed adults across the lifespan who lived in a small rural southern New Zealand community, and this article explores the latent precarities of rurality and ageing that they identified. If community assets dwindle or become unavailable, and health capabilities decline, latent precarities may multiply, or become actual/experienced precarities. The experience of ageing well in rural places can be improved and older adults better supported through the identification of, and attention to, forms of latent precarity within these rural places.

The authors are Chrystal Jaye, Judith McHugh, Fiona Doolan-Noble, and Lincoln C. Wood. 

States steering more money to rural roads

That's from a Pew Report published earlier this month. An excerpt follows: 

[A] growing number of states have been focusing their attention on improving rural roads.

Many rural roads carry heavy trucks and farm equipment, and some haven’t been repaved in decades, transportation officials say. With many state budgets healthy and new money arriving from the federal COVID-19 stimulus and bipartisan infrastructure laws, states are spending more.

In June, for example, Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills touted a $9.2 million project to revitalize the rural highway corridors that lead to the state’s western mountains, where several ski slopes are located.

In Texas, the Department of Transportation plans to invest $14 billion over the next decade on rural projects. That’s a 600% hike in planned rural funding compared with just seven years ago, according to Alvin New, a Texas Transportation Commission member.

And in Oklahoma, transportation officials received a $41.5 million federal loan earlier this year; it will fund nearly half the cost of a rural safety improvement project in eight counties.

“Rural areas are absolutely critical to the functioning of the nation’s economy, and you need a safe, reliable transportation network,” said Rocky Moretti, director of policy and research at TRIP, a nonprofit transportation research organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. “If the system deteriorates to the point that it becomes difficult to move trucks that carry food and products, that’s a big problem.”

And for the tens of millions of residents who live in rural communities and use those roads for commuting, shopping, going to school and medical appointments, it’s critical that the roads are in decent condition, Moretti said.

“The worse the shape the roads are in, the more the cost of operating a vehicle increases,” he said. “That impacts the consumer.”

An October report by TRIP noted that the United States faces a $109 billion backlog for rural road and highway rehabilitation, such as repaving and reconstruction, and a $36 billion backlog for rural roadway enhancements, such as safety improvements.

The report said that in 2020, 12% of major rural roads were rated in poor condition, 19% in mediocre condition and 17% in fair condition.

The report called America’s rural transportation system “the first and last link” in the supply chain from farm to market. It said the supply chain issues that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic heightened the importance of the rural road system when it comes to moving goods and products.

“As the nation’s major rural roads and highways continue to age, they will reach a point where routine paving and maintenance will not be adequate to keep pavement surfaces in good condition and costly reconstruction of the roadway and its underlying surfaces will become necessary,” the report stated.

And here's a piece on transportation issues in rural Montana, this one about how to better serve veterans in accessing health care through the VA.   

Here's a recent Washington Post piece on the prospect of paving a long Australian road, the Outback Way, which runs from Laverton to Winton. Some 750 miles of it are still unpaved.    

Yesterday, the New York Times started covering the latest data on U.S. traffic deaths. 

Ag crime on two continents--and an interesting rural crime reporting network in the UK

First out of New Zealand, a story about systematic slashing of plastic coverings on large hay bales in the Otago region of the South Island, specifically the community of Owaka.  The headline there is "Feed bales slashed in overnight attack, " and the story appeared on the website, Rural Life.  Of particular interest here is the apparent motivation for the attack:  the farmers whose hay was damaged are vocal anti-vaxxers and have opposed the government's COVID restrictions.  

Second, out of the north of England, the headline on Farmer Watch UK is "Rural communities In County Durham urged to be extra vigilant following fuel thefts."  An excerpt follows:  

Farmers and residents of rural areas are being urged to be extra vigilant following a national rise in fuel thefts.

Officers are advising people to keep their tanks out of sight and install security measures such as CCTV, padlocks and lighting to deter opportunistic thieves who have been targeting stores of heating oil.

Thieves traditionally target farms during the night which gives them more opportunities to get away unnoticed.

Farmer Watch UK, which I just discovered when this story came across my Twitter feed, describes itself as the UK's Number One Rural Crime Alert Network.   As one can see from just its home page, it is chock full of rural and farm crime, everything from the suspicious death of a Goshawk (protected species) in Wales to a Kent Farmer being sentenced after his worker became entangled in a potato harvester.  From Warwickshire come the report of a"Novice metal detectorist stopped by police for Roman treasure hunt at protected site," and from Stoke-on-Trent,  Staffordshire "Woman and dog mauled by 'Staffy' at popular beauty spot."  As I reference this site on April 1, there are seven reports from today alone.  One of them is this report of more proactive law enforcement out of Northumbria, "Almost 70 vehicles stopped, drugs seized and suspects arrested in fight to tackle rural crime."

Almost 70 vehicles were stopped, drugs seized and suspects arrested during a police operation to tackle rural crime. Officers across the region have partnered up to take further action against criminal activity in one of their biggest rural crime operations yet.

Operation Checkpoint, which is the biggest rural policing operation of its kind in the country, ran overnight on Wednesday, March 30, into the early hours of yesterday morning, and saw almost 70 vehicles stopped, drugs seized, suspects arrested and targeted initiatives carried out. Operation Checkpoint is an ongoing proactive initiative that targets suspected criminal activity in order to disrupt the organised network and protect communities by acting on local intelligence and emerging crime trends.

An interesting service for rural folks in the United Kingdom.  I see Farmer Watch UK is a registered company in England and Wales and based in County Durham., but I can't see any other information that reveals how runs it or how it is funded.  

Citizen science in rural Australia

 Here's a charming report out of remote South Australia by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:  

When rainfall strikes, the first question many people ask is 'how many millimetres did you get?'

And for thousands of volunteer rainfall recorders across the country, it is their job to measure and record the rainfall for their region and report it back to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The rainfall tally is not only used for up-to-date information, but it forms a record of Australian weather patterns.

Austen and Thelma Eatts are both 91 years old and live on a property in the farming district of Kelly, just down the road from Kimba, on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.

Their family has been recording rainfall for the bureau since 1918 — a total of 102 years.

Coronavirus in rural Australia: Resistance from remote Queensland

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation comes this headline, "Coronavirus rules need to be relaxed in remote areas, pubs should reopen, locals say."  Francene Norton reports from Diamantina Shire, Queensland, population 292, on the border with South Australia:

Diamantina Shire Mayor Robbie Dare, who returned to the job after retiring from local government in 2012, called for pubs to reopen given there were no known cases of COVID-19 in some areas. 

Norton quotes Mr. Dare: 

We're very lucky we're isolated already just by the nature of being out here in the outback and everyone out here has been doing the right thing.  

We all know we haven't got it and yet our pubs have closed down the road. 

I think they look at our remote areas at least and think about letting them back in, because the same people are walking into the shop and filling their vehicles up. 

Why can't they just walk into the hotel and have a beer? We haven't got any strangers in town.

My Rural Travelogue (Part XXVIII): New Zealand

Secondary road between Rotorua and Taupo

Sign for passenger ferry on Waiheke Island
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2019

I spent the winter break in New Zealand, starting on the north island before spending the last few nights on the south island.  Both are highly agricultural and, as several Kiwis have commented, quite "rural."  The rurality is especially striking from the vantage point of most roads, which tend to be two-lane, with relatively frequent passing lanes.  In fact, according to the government of New Zealand's own very miserly definition of rural (places with populations less than 1K), only about 13% of the nation's population is rural.

Horse manure for sale, across from school and near car ferry,
Surfdale, Waiheke Island
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2019

After a few days on Waiheke Island (population 9,770) off Auckland in the Hauraki Gulf, we headed south through Hamilton, population 165,900 and the country's 4th most populous city (also home of Jacinda Ardern), to the Huka Falls area, near Taupo, population 24,700.

Activities on offer at Oneroa community hall
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2019

That journey took us along two-lane roads amidst many, many dairy farms, the signage for which indicated that they night be jointly owned, or part of a co-operative, as they shared a common name and then were numbered up to 9 (of course, there could have been more that I did not see).  Above is a sign we saw on the road to Orakei Karako Thermal Park--a sorta' mini Yellowstone, between Rotorua and Taupo.  In that region, we saw farms featuring both cattle and sheep.  From there, we headed to Hawke's Bay along a two-land road with signs that said things like "Roaming Livestock . Call 0800 4 Highway" and several signs announcing places where stock waste can be disposed.  In the Hawke's Bay area, we saw many wineries--and a lot more sheep and lambs.

Cattle and sheep operation near Orakei Korako Thermal Park, Waikato Region
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2019

On the road between Queenstown and Glenorchy, south island
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2020

From there we flew to Queenstown, population 15,850, on the south island.  Queenstown is a tourist center--indeed, the so-called adrenaline capital of the world--and its population swells during summer and winter. Among the smaller communities outside the small city of Queensland, are Glenorchy, Arrowtown, Wanaka, and Cromwell.   Indeed, some agricultural pursuits, including (once again) sheep and wine, flourish nearby.

The Queenstown area in Cental Otago seems to have grown up around two primary pursuits--before the adrenaline thing took off:  gold mining and sheep.  Arrowtown is a place associated with the mid 1800s gold rush, and the old assay office is now a museum.  Walter Peak, a "high country farm" across the lake from Queenstown, is now also a delightful tourist attraction where you can have a fabulous meal and see sheep shearing and sheep dog demonstrations.

Rural news out of Australia

I've been collecting these stories and am just going to roll them into a single post, with "Australia" as the common theme:

First, from the Washington Post, is this story about a rural community of Biloela (population 5,758) in Central Queensland (Banana Shire, no less!) which has rallied around a Sri Lankan immigrant family, trying to spare them deportation.   Rebecca Tan writes under the headline, "How a conservative town in Australia set aside politics to rally for a family facing deportation."  The headline implies that rural folks are conservative and, perhaps, also anti-immigrant-- except when it came to this family.  Tan writes: 

Kokilapathmapriya Nadesalingham and her husband, Nadesalingam Murugappan, who go by Priya and Nades, fled Sri Lanka amid a civil war and settled in Biloela five years ago. After failed attempts at securing the appropriate visas, the couple, along with their two Australian-born daughters, Kopika, 4, and Tharunicaa, 2, were seized by immigration authorities from their home last year and placed in a detention facility under deportation proceedings.

* * * 

[In Biloela] friends, neighbors and strangers have worked for a year to get the family home, forming an online movement under the banner “#HomeToBilo."

* * * 

“The emotional swing that has occurred in this community has been extraordinary,” Angela Fredericks, a Biloela resident and friend of the family, told the Guardian on Saturday. “I’ve never seen a rage like that in Biloela. We’re a polite town.”

As for how the family endeared themselves to the community, Tan writes:

In the four years they spent in Biloela, the Tamil family had become a core part of the community, advocates say. Nades worked at the local abattoir and volunteered at a welfare services society, St. Vincent de Paul. Priya, the Guardian reported, often cooked for staff at the hospital.

One community member commented for the Washington Post: 

It’s a very politically conservative town; that’s not debatable. Growing up, I had never ever been to a protest or to a vigil about anything political.

Even now, I think people are not thinking about it as global issues or politics. It’s a story about a family and a town that wants them back.

I can't help wonder how the Biloela resident quoted here would define "conservative."

The other stories from down under came to my attention via the Australia Broadcasting Corporation's Twitter feed.  One is out of South Australia, a town called Lucindale (population 301), and it's about how this community lobbied to host a major national concert as a way to help raise money to replace their dilapidated pool. 

Almost 15,000 festival goers donated more than $22,000 — half of which is to go towards the pool, the other to youth leadership scholarships — as they entered the gates to the free event. 

It means children from the small farming community, almost 350 kilometres south-east of Adelaide, will not have to travel to other towns for their half-hour swimming lessons.

Love this quote from a "Year 12" student about his town:

It sums up the way Lucindale lives and operates as a community. We set out a goal to do something and we get it done.

The third story is about coal mining in New South Wales in an area called Bylong Valley.  Here's the gist of the story, with no significant explanation for the decision to stop the mine:

There has been immediate and sometimes angry reaction to the Independent Planning Commission's decision to halt the proposed multi-million-dollar Bylong Valley coal mine in the Upper Hunter. 

The mine was expected start operations this year and provide 650 jobs during construction and 450 once developed in the Bylong Valley. 

The decision by the IPC to reject the proposal comes following significant community opposition.

Literary Ruralism (Part XIV): A thriller from down under

I read a review of The Lost Man in today's New York Times.  The new novel, by Jane Harper, is being published this week in the United States.  Harper is a novelist I'd never even heard of before today, and I'm not really into crime novels/thrillers.  That said, the review is quite positive, so I have ordered the book.  Here's the part of Charles Finch's review I want to highlight for this blog:

“The Lost Man” is set in Queensland, a ranch’s distance off from a town called Balamara, itself “a single street, really,” 1,500 kilometers west of Brisbane. (For those of you still using imperial units, 1,500 kilometers is roughly equivalent to one billion miles.) In this remote country, Nathan Bright is isolated further still by an ancient transgression whose nature Harper doesn’t immediately disclose. 

* * *

“Human relationships are vast as deserts,” Patrick White, perhaps Australia’s greatest writer, once wrote. “They demand all daring.” Harper’s books succeed in part because she conveys how even now, geography can be fate. Heat and empty space in her work defeat modernity, defeat logic, technology and even love, throwing us back upon our irreducible selves.

Ah yes, this reminds me of what I wrote here, an idea much resisted by some of the North American academics who edited the volume, that technology (or "modernity" in the lingo of the reviewer) does not in fact easily or readily (or inexpensively) tame material distance. 

As for Harper as an author and a force, the reviewer writes:

Book by book, she’s creating her own vivid and complex account of the outback, and its people who live where people don’t live.

What a powerful way of expressing that one lives in a truly remote, barely populated place.

I'm linking to two posts (here and here) about my own travelogue/journey through Queensland's interior in 2012, when I was a visiting scholar at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba, the nation's largest inland/non coastal population cluster.

Farmer suicides in Australia, old news down under but now in the New York Times

The New York Times today includes a long-ish feature story on farmer suicides in Australia.  The headline is "A Booming Economy with a Tragic Price," which hints at the story's inequality and globalization angles, but not the mental health/rural services angle which is also a key component of this excellent reporting:

Family farms like Mr. Guy’s [who committed suicide in 2016] have been the producers of Australia’s agricultural bounty, and the bedrock of its self-image as a nation of proudly self-reliant types, carving a living from a vast continent. But as Australia’s rural economy has boomed on the back of growing exports, small farmers have not always shared in the bounty, with many forced into borrowing money or selling their farms.

This is old news "down under," according to my Aussie friends, and I've seen some coverage of similar trends in the United States, as here and here.  (This is also reminiscent of the deaths of despair associated with rural folks in the U.S., though in Australia it is men who are disproportionately dying). One reason, it seems, that this trend is now attracting so much attention in the NYT (this is part I of II in the NYT, on "Regional Australia," a term used to connote "rural" in that nation) is the family murder-suicide that occurred a few weeks ago in Western Australia.

Here's a further sobering, data-dense excerpt from Jacqueline Williams' feature story in the NYT:

Nationwide, people living in remote Australia now take their own lives at twice the rate of those in the city: Every year, there are about 20 suicide deaths per 100,000 people in isolated rural areas, compared with 10 in urban communities, according to independent studies of local health figures.

In very remote parts of the country, the figure is closer to 23, the studies say.

Data out of the state of Queensland are even worse, also indicating that the more remote the farmer, the higher the suicide risk.  

Williams then takes up that which differentiates what is happening in Australia from what is happening in other nations where farmers are experiencing higher rates of suicide:

[T]he crisis seems to be worsening at a time when, at least on paper, the [Australian] rural economy is quite robust.

* * * 

There is a painful irony here, they say, since Australia has embraced free trade in farm goods, and even pressed other nations to liberalize their markets, in the belief that agriculture is one of its most competitive industries. 

And Australian farm exports are growing: Last year, they totaled 44.8 billion Australian dollars, or $33.5 billion, up more than a fifth from just six years earlier, according to the National Farmers Federation. 

But many experts say the biggest beneficiaries are larger corporate farms. Family farms are less able to ride out fluctuations in far-flung global markets that can drive down prices of their crops while raising the cost of tractor fuel. 

 So, neoliberalism does a number down under, too.

As I hinted above, this story also includes important information on the dearth of services in rural Australia, and how mental health services are being delivered there--sometimes in innovative fashion.  The story is well worth a read in its entirety.                                                                         

Trump's trade policies hard on farmers (or at least on agribusiness)

While some political commentary suggested that many rural Americans were drawn to Donald Trump's candidacy because of his tough stance on trade, it turns out that some rural areas--or more precisely, some types of farmers--may be badly hurt by the ditching of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade pact negotiated by the Obama administration.  Politico Magazine ran this big feature a few days ago, "Trump's Trade Pullout Roils Rural America."  The dateline is Eagle Grove, Iowa, where a massive new meat processing plant is being built.  But the story illustrates the risks from the current trade environment to rural America and/or to farmers by reference to an agribusiness enterprise--the one building the Iowa facility, but which is based in North Carolina.  There's actually not much emphasis on individual producers.  Here's an excerpt:  

The gleaming new factory is both the great hope of Wright County, [Iowa] which voted by a 2-1 margin for Donald Trump, and the victim of one of Trump’s first policy moves, his decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

For much of industrial America, the TPP was a suspect deal, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which some argue led to a massive offshoring of U.S. jobs to Mexico. But for the already struggling agricultural sector, the sprawling 12-nation TPP, covering 40 percent of the world’s economy, was a lifeline. It was a chance to erase punishing tariffs that restricted the United States—the onetime “breadbasket of the world”—from selling its meats, grains and dairy products to massive importers of foodstuffs such as Japan and Vietnam.

The decision to pull out of the trade deal has become a double hit on places like Eagle Grove. The promised bump of $10 billion in agricultural output over 15 years, based on estimates by the U.S. International Trade Commission, won’t materialize. But Trump’s decision to withdraw from the pact also cleared the way for rival exporters such as Australia, New Zealand and the European Union to negotiate even lower tariffs with importing nations, creating potentially greater competitive advantages over U.S. exports.

A POLITICO analysis found that the 11 other TPP countries are now involved in a whopping 27 separate trade negotiations with each other, other major trading powers in the region like China and massive blocs like the EU. Those efforts range from exploratory conversations to deals already signed and awaiting ratification. Seven of the most significant deals for U.S. farmers were either launched or concluded in the five months since the United States withdrew from the TPP.

Here's a piece on Trump and NAFTA from the AgLaw Blog back in March, 2017.

Finding the balance between rural tourism and transforming the rural into urban enclaves.

Introduction

At the root of the myriad challenges facing rural dwellers is an anemic economy.  Whether local economic activity is focused on a singular entity (factory farms, coal mines, or similar monolithic entities) or a hodgepodge of small service industries that limp along, a common theme for those struggling in rural locations is simply a lack of economic opportunity.  To an extent the lack of opportunity is understandable: without a large enough population, there simply isn't the impetus for massive economic development. Therefore, the industries that do exist in rural places are the primary employers--prisons, hog farms, and mines. 

Rather than turn to these dominating rural employers, there is an industry that may help alleviate economic underdevelopment.  Tourism.  And while tourism, like agribusiness or resource extraction, is not a magic bullet, it certainly has the potential to bring vital services and development to rural economies. 

Tourism and rural infrastructure

In some places, like Jackson Hole, Telluride, and other mountain towns in the Rockies, tourism fundamentally changed the character of rural areas.  Sometimes these changes altered the towns to no longer be rural--through an increase in population and infrastructure--to the extent that the towns can no longer be considered rural.  

In other rural locations, tourism is much more of an intermittent phenomenon. For example, Birdsville, Queensland, Australia.  Birdsville is a remote place in western Queensland at the edge of the Simpson Desert and about 1,000 miles from the state capital of Brisbane.  The population is approximately 115 people; of whom half are Indigenous Australians.  However the town receives approximately 45,000 visitors from April-October.   7,000 of those visitors come during one weekend in September for the Birdsville Races.  The remainder of the visitors are generally older Australians who are going around the country in RVs, or the occasional backpacker.   

However, this influx of seasonal tourism presents unique challenges for the rural environment.  Generally, services are already limited.  In Birdsville, there is a single police officer.  There is a court, but it lacks a resident magistrate.  Instead, court is convened on the weekend of the Birdsville races, over telephone with a judge from Townsville--located on the Queensland coast 832 miles away.  The school has one teacher and 5 enrolled students.  There is a local clinic, but if there are serious health issues, the best treatment option is a 1,000-mile flight to Brisbane.  By any definition, Birdsville is rural.  Its infrastructure is designed for 363days of quiet, and 2 days of massive tourism.  Such a planning process is not 

The town plans for the annual influx of visitors exceptionally early. Police officers are drafted in from other towns, such as Mt. Isa, 10 hours to the north. Foodstuff and beer inventories begin in March.  In 2010, the races were cancelled due to torrential rain; and the tourists were stranded for 2 days.  The town ran out of food (but not beer); and the last pack of cigarettes in town was auctioned off for $200.   With the exception of the dedicated tourism industry, most of Birdsville engages in agricultural enterprises.  Services, including access to food, are limited to what can be grown, flown in, and kept in extreme temperatures.  So while the Birdsville Races put the rural town on the map, and it is generally prosperous, the question seems to remain, is the tourism and preparation worth it?

Is there a balance?

In 2010, the State government of Alberta, Canada, commissioned a report on "Rural Tourism."  In it, rural tourism was primarily defined as, "the 'country experience' [with] opportunities for visitors to directly experience agricultural and/or natural environments."  And while focused primarily on agritourism, the report also includes "nature holidays and ecotourism, walking, climbing, and riding holidays, adventure, sport, and health tourism, hunting, angling, educational travel, arts, and heritage tourism, and in some areas, ethnic tourism [sic]."  The report acknowledges that rural towns essentially have two options: beef up infrastructure in the hopes of supporting year round tourism, or banking on annual events to fill town coffers, and eek out an existence for the remainder of the year. 

However, on a whole, the report finds that rural tourism is generally positive. As a form of economic development, the injection of outside cash is significant and allows for rural job creation, new business opportunities, increased infrastructure services, and increased land conservation (at least in places where ecotourism is prominent).  The report recognizes some of the problems with rural tourism--namely the seasonal nature, but seems to advocate for rural places up and down Canada to embrace their rural nature and follow in the successful footsteps of places like Ballyhoura in Ireland and the Trossachs in Scotland (places that relied on significant government grants, development agencies, and community involvement).  I wonder how a lot of rural communities would feel about increased outside government influence on their economy.

Conclusion 

Birdsville may be an extreme example of rural tourism: a town of 115 that welcomes 7,000 for two days.  However, in rural towns--with populations of 2,000-3,000, the questions surrounding tourism are difficult to answer.  On one hand, tourism brings in money, allows for infrastructure expansion, and may provide for a more sustainable economic base (if not exactly diversified).  However, there are drawbacks.  Tourism can be notoriously fickle.  When trends change, the rural town that embraced tourism may be left thigh and dry.  And, taken to the extreme, encouraging tourism may lead to the fundamental destruction of the rural character of a place.  Rurality is partially defined by spatial distance and sparse population (among other things).  With the increased population and connectivity that tourism brings, what does that mean for rurality?  Does the tourist town simply become a pastiche of rural life? An island of prosperity shaped by urban notions of what rural should look like?

I have no idea what the right answer is for fostering economic development.  Every rural situation is different, and like agribusiness, mining, timber, or other traditional rural industries, tourism is not a magic bullet.  However, when developed thoughtfully, tourism can help boost local economies, and provide some semblance of economic stability. With the right event, a town can be on the map for one weekend a year and enjoy a sleepy, successful existence.  But generally, for tourism to be successful, the development should reflect the nature of the rural place, and embrace the complexities of the rural lifestyle--from farming to solitude.  Otherwise, tourism will simply make formerly rural places urban enclaves in the middle of nowhere.

For more on the urban corruption (or at least, exploitation) of the rural, read: this and this.
For more on agritourism, read: this, this, and this.
For more on ecotourism, read: this and this.

Indigenous Australians: the brutal cycle of subpar education, healthcare, and poverty for a rural population

Introduction

In many respects the story of Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders (hereinafter referred to as Indigenous Australians or people for readability) mirrors that of other native peoples.  As the European population spread over the continent, Indigenous peoples were marginalized, assimilated, or killed.  In Australia, from the 1870s to the 1970s (officially, 1969, but the practice continued in some locations for some time), indigenous children were forcibly removed from their communities.

The tragedy of the indigenous experience is one that is incredibly rich and complex, and I do not seek to do it justice in a single post.  However, the parallels of that experience to that of Native Americans is worth noting: many Indigenous Australians live in rural or remote areas, and experience the same issues as other remote populations: poverty, lack of access to education, healthcare, and social services, increased instances of substance abuse and domestic violence.  In Australia, the Indigenous population experiences rural issues at a higher rate than the white populations.  This post will focus on indigenous poverty, education, and healthcare; and the policies the Australian federal government may change under the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull.

For posts on the interplay between education and health in rural California, read this.  For a more comprehensive understanding of rural poverty and education in the US, read this.  For a post on rural health in the United States, read this. 

Indigenous Poverty 

Across Australia,  rural and remote poverty is slightly worse than it is in the "capital cities," 13.1% in rural areas vs. 12.6% in the cities.  For a more detailed breakdown of Australian demographics, see this. Poverty in the greater, rural Australian contexts several characteristics: 

• lower income
• declining employment opportunities
• distance and isolation
• reduced access to healthcare, education, and other social services.

Throughout most of Australia, the poverty rate is generally higher in rural areas, except in New South Wales and Western Australia (where the cost of housing in the capital cities; Sydney and Perth, is very high). 

Specific to Indigenous Australians, the average disposable income of an indigenous person is about 70% of that of a white Australian. The discrepancy between Indigenous and white Australians is exacerbated in rural Australia.  For example, in Cape York (the remote, northern peninsula in Queensland), the average Indigenous weekly income is $394, 45% of the white average income of $869.  In no region of Australia--remote, rural, or urbanized--do Indigenous Australians have a higher disposable income than white Australians. Furthermore, Indigenous Australians are 2.5% of the overall population, but accounted for nearly 25% of homeless people in the 2011 census. 

As of the 2011 census, the Indigenous unemployment rate was 17.1%.  Of the Indigenous Australians aged between 15 and 64, only 46.5% were employed, compared to 70.6% of white Australians.  
Clearly, despite the relatively small proportion of the Australian population that is Indigenous, this population is disproportionately poor, under-served, and resident in rural and remote areas.  In fact, only 1/3 of Indigenous Australians live in major cities.  The remaining 2/3 of the Indigenous populations live in inner regional (22%), outer regional (22%), remote (8%), and very remote (14%) areas.  For definitions of these terms, see my previous post and this map. This population distribution is very different from the non-Indigenous, urban centric population.  What causes this population and poverty discrepancy, and more importantly, how are the Australian state and federal governments addressing the problem? 

Indigenous Education

As of the 2011 census, Indigenous children comprised approximately 4.8 % of students, compared to Indigenous Australians comprising only 2.5% of the population.  This disparity is partly caused by higher fertility rates, but also because nearly all children of intermarriage are identified as Indigenous. Despite the higher proportion of Indigenous children, approximately 20% of Indigenous children failed basic literacy and numeracy tests. 

The failure of this 20% must be understood in light of diminishing goals under the Coalition of Australian Governments (COAG) (In 2008, the COAG changed the education goals from seeking to eliminate the gap between Indigenous and white Australians in 4 years to halving the gap between Indigenous and white Australians in 10 years--a pretty drastic change in goals).  See this for the full 2012 education report. 

A significant reason this policy shift has failed to reduce education gaps is that COAG identifies "Indignity" itself as the obstacle. In 2011, approximately $360 million was spent on "culturally appropriate" programs.  These programs basically take resources away from classroom instruction and divert it towards theatre specialists, puppeteers, and visual artists.  This money was essentially wasted. The states that spent the least on these programs were most successful in reducing the education gap.  Queensland spent $850 per student on these cultural programs and reduced the gap; whereas South Australia spent nearly $6000 per student on the cultural program and saw no change. 

The state of education is even worse in Indigenous schools--schools that enroll 75% or more Indigenous students. These schools enroll approximately 20,000 students, mainly in rural or remote areas without private sector employment and remain welfare dependent. Forty schools in the Northern Territory do not have a full time teacher every day of the week.  Across the board, these schools have a failure rate of 90%.  

Another 40,000 Indigenous students are enrolled "mainstream" schools with students from low socio-economic backgrounds, with high staff turnover and disciplinary problems.  
From 2011 to 2013, graduation rates and several other metrics improved slightly. However, in mid-level progress, there were significant gaps between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students--nearly 61.6% literacy gap at schools in the Northern Territories. However, there was an improvement of 6.5% of Indigenous children attending the last year of schooling. 

In light of these slight improvements, the Australian government lowered the targets, to allow for 90% school attendance, and access to preschool for 95% of rural Indigenous populations under the age of 4.  Currently, 91% of these children have access to preschool.
In the 2015 COAG report, these education numbers remained disturbingly stagnant. For the full report, read this.  For the highlights, read on.  

Only two of the government's targets were met: halving the mortality rate for Indigenous children under 5 and halving the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children finishing school.  In effect, since 2008, there has been no progress in improving literacy or numeracy among Indigenous children.  The COAG report, in making recommendations to the federal government, suggested making preventative health, and access to healthcare overall, a priority in reducing the education gap between Indigenous and white Australians.

Indigenous Healthcare 

Indigenous Australians have a life expectancy approximately 10 years shorter than non-Indigenous Australians.  Indigenous people also have high levels of preventable, treatable, and chronic medical conditions in higher percentages than the non-Indigenous population, including:

• 3x the instances of diabetes
• 2x the instances of chronic kidney disease
• 4x the instances of advanced chronic kidney disease
• 3x (and rising) the instances of Hepatitis C

The prevalence of poorer health clearly track with increased poverty, increased homelessness, decreased education, and the remoteness of major Indigenous population centers. For a comprehensive overview of Indigenous Australian health, read this.  

Like the causes and irritating factors of poverty, the Indigenous health gap is caused by a variety of factors, including: insufficient housing, insufficient education, and insufficient access to health services.  Generally speaking, Indigenous Australians should access healthcare much more often than non-Indigenous Australians; but the reality only suggest a marginal increase in access.  The discrepancy in this access can be attributed to the remote nature--and understaffed and underfunded.  In fact, 26% of Indigenous Australians seeking access to health services reported barriers.  The barriers to access were underfunding (and consequently higher costs to patients) and understaffing (causing longer wait times). 

Access to general practitioners (GPs, or your standard physician who performs physicals and treats general ailments) and preventative medicine is perhaps the single greatest challenge--and opportunity--for Indigenous Australian health.  In the rural and remote areas, access to GPs decreases significantly the further one moves away from cities.  In addition, preventable hospitalizations in these regions remain stable across non-Indigenous populations, but skyrockets for Indigenous Australians (in remote areas, nearly 300/1000 Indigenous people. were hospitalized for preventable ailments, compared to 50/1000 non-Indigenous people). 

Improving the Quality of Life for Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians face significant challenges in both urban and rural environments, but a significant portion of Indigenous Australians live in rural areas.  Therefore, the challenges they face--access to education and healthcare, as well as increased instances of domestic violence (discussed in my last post)--are exacerbated by lack of well-funded services and the remote nature of the communities.  Access to education and healthcare must increase if there is to be a significant change in poverty statistics.  So what can the Australian government do?

Under the Abbott government, the federal government changed the way it funds Indigenous programs, from nearly 150 individual programs to 5-broader strategies.  This changed reduced the amount of red tape and the number of bureaucrats in Indigenous communities.  However, Indigenous leaders feel that the change is only half complete.  The leaders will soon meet with PM Turnbull to discuss further changes, but no firm date has been set.  In the meantime, Turnbull will continue with an Indigenous Affairs Council.  But it remains to be seen how the new government will tackle years of stagnant educational change.  And one thing remains abundantly clear, the Indigenous population faces significant challenges, compounded by the exceedingly rural nature of Rural communities.