THE fact that a large percentage of NSW exports emanate out of regional areas, but regional projects are often populist vote winners amounting to little more than change rooms at a sports ground irks Rest of NSW chairman Bob Wheeldon.
“Let’s face it all of the mines are outside of Sydney, and all of agriculture is outside Sydney, but you see lots of little projects outside Sydney being undertaken by the government, but tens of billions spent in the metropolitan areas,” he said.
“What we really need in regional areas is transformative projects, that make a real difference.”
He said that was one of the main drives of his organisation, to explain the nuances of regional areas and the contribution they make to the wider economy.
There is a dearth of planners who understand or appreciate that when regional areas are not doing well, the entire economy suffers.
Mr Wheeldon said there were many incentives that could be employed to help spread the NSW population, which would in turn alleviate some of the pressing problems, such as traffic congestion, that Sydney was facing.
“At the moment it seems as if once one congestion glut is solved, another pops up in its place because there are more and more houses, or apartment developments, occurring all the time.”
He said there were many regional NSW towns that were effectively being depopulated but had good infrastructure already in place that was simply underused.
“There’s a way of talking about it (regional development) that needs to change,” he said. “People aren’t necessarily there because things are cheaper, or they can’t afford to buy in Sydney, many people don’t want to be in Sydney because regional NSW is a better place to live.”
But the fact people couldn’t even get radio reception in some areas, let alone mobile phone reception, said a lot about how lopsided the government’s approach to servicing the population had become, he said.
“There are splurges of money being injected into the system and it’s not because the government is (populated by) geniuses,” he said, “every time a farm sells for $5 million that’s $250,000 into the state’s coffers”.
He said companies could be encouraged to operate in the regions by relaxation of payroll and property taxes.
“Unless you have a fair share of infrastructure development then there should be tax relief,” he said.
