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Print FriendlyRelocating Canberra bureaucrats not the solution
Rod Brown is a Canberra-based consultant specialising in industry and regional development.
Phone/fax 02 - 62317261, Email apd@orac.net.au
The current thinking within the OECD and similar think-tanks is that regional communities need to develop niches based on their inherent and/or their accumulated competitive advantages.
The experts emphasise that local government must play a leadership role with other stakeholders to build these niches.
However in the real world, people want runs on the board. They tend to forget about competitive advantage. Politicians - federal, state and local - are dragged into throwing subsidies at footloose investors, and supporting marginal projects for fear of being seen by voters as anti-jobs or anti-development. In this vein, the latest idea about relocating government departments to the Bush is gathering momentum. To my mind, Australia's regions need viable private sector investments, not a stolen generation of bureaucrats.
A Better Way - three opportunities
I spend a lot of time working in regional Australia, talking to locals, and working up investment projects. Accordingly I recently made submissions to two separate parliamentary enquiries into regional unemployment and regional infrastructure. Three opportunities were emphasised, and I would like to relay them to you.
The first opportunity is for local government to take a strong leadership position in economic development by relentlessly pursuing long-term development scenarios based on the competitive advantages of their locality. In doing so, local government can shape the decisions of other players in progressively improving regional infrastructure.
Local government can also provide the other necessary ingredient - a collaborative framework. This might sound a bit Californian, but there is documented evidence that a can-do, cooperative culture wins outcomes. I can vouch for the fact that governments (except when in election lead-ups - the silly season) are actually impressed by two things - shared commitment, and a solid argument based on competitive advantage.
The second opportunity is for institutional investors, the major banks and the energy/communications utilities to swing into these agendas.
Some of the smart utilities are actually doing this. They are working with development agencies to think through ways of upgrading infrastructure, resourcing regional players, harnessing local skills, providing reality checks and helping to market and network their ideas. They can also get close to some good market intelligence, and win kudos at high levels.
The third opportunity is for the federal government to make its programs ‘hit the ground’. The effectiveness of these programs is reduced because of delays and overly-tight criteria. The federal government also persists with a raffle ticket mentality - unless organisations have people tracking the Canberra scene and/or have skills in submission writing, they face on average a 15% chance of success. This leaves 85% of the punters with losing tickets, which builds up resentment towards Canberra.
The better approach would be to consolidate the many little-known programs into a few big pots, apply a notional proportion to each region, and then spend the bulk of the money in line with regional strategies agreed by the local players. A further step would place 2-3 high level Commonwealth officials in each region to work with State and local government agencies and the utilities etc. as discussed above. This would cut delays and empower the local leaders.
This is not fantasy - the UK Government did exactly this around 1995 when it realised that its interface with the regions simply wasn't working.
The above approach has a weakness - it still feeds off a paternalistic and power-based hierarchy in Canberra. It is thus only a 'half way' house to a full devolution model where regions would have annual budgets and more autonomy.
The required shift does not require a philosophical u-turn by companies or governments. It puts regions into the loop, and doesn't involve hare-brained ideas of moving whole Departments en masse!