Mullumbimby: a case study in the unexpected outcomes of protest

The photo shows a demonstration in Mullumbimby against  the building of a Woolworth's store in the town. The photo comes from an interesting story in the Sydney Morning Herald by Malcolm Knox: How Woolworths overcame local opposition and set up a supermarket near Mullumbimby.

In very simple terms, a local family wanted to build a supermarket in the town, part of Byron Shire, but faced fierce opposition. Finally, they sold the project out to Woolworths who with time, money and connections were able to go around the protestors. The end result was a bigger store owned outside the town.

This is hardly the result the protestors wanted. I suspect if asked to make a choice between a locally owned store and a bigger store owned by Woolworths, they would have opted for the first very quickly. But then, that's a retrospective view. Having won on the first count, they expected to win on the second as well.

Has the Greiner infrastructure report failed New England?

Infrastructure NSW has finally released its blue print into the State's long term infrastructure needs. This photo of Mr Greiner is from the Australian. It's a long report and I have to assess it properly. However, I thought that I would give you a quick preliminary reaction, subject to the necessary qualification that my views may change with further analysis.

To begin with, in presentation, it is one of those reports so beloved by modern governments all expressed in present tense. In <insert date>, NSW will <insert aspiration>. To counter this, my starting point is always to ask if the proposals achieve every one of the expected benefits, will New England be better off and if so how? The answer is not much, with some minor gains in some areas, potential losses in others.

To understand this, you have to look at some of the assumptions built into the report. These include:

1. There is such a thing as a NSW economy. There is not beyond a statistical construct based on current boundaries.
2. That economic growth in Sydney will have spin-off benefits to the rest of NSW. That's an assumption. My view is otherwise.
3. That modelling and policy should be based on current trends, on what is, not what might be. The past is not a good guide to the future, nor does analysis based just on aggregate statistics of what is provide a solid planning base without considering other variables.
4. That you can analyse inland NSW by lumping everything from the escarpment minus the Blue Mountains into a single entity.

The report suffers, too, from  border myopia. It does not adequately recognise the interlinks between parts of NSW and surrounding jurisdictions.

If the report delivers on every one of the identified New England benefits, this is (broadly) what we can expect:

1. The Pacific Highway upgrade will continue because it is current policy, but subject to reviews as to costs and value for money.
2. Some money will be invested in the coal corridor. However, there appears no recognition of the need to assist local authorities to manage the strain on infrastructure created by mining development. 
3. There will be some investment in Hunter water needs. Other water bodies will be aggregated into bigger units.
4. There will be some new investment in dams for irrigation.
5. Other existing projects will continue, but inland NSW won't get anything because this cannot be justified on the economic modelling. I refer you to assumptions 3 and 4 above.

Now because I have only skim read the report, I am happy to be corrected. But do you think that a New England Government would have had quite the same focus?   

Introducing failures in NSW tourism branding

My heart sinks, sometimes! The latest sinking feeling came from news reports that three inland NSW tourism bodies including New England North West were to merge to form a single inland NSW tourism body. Mind you, the idea may have already sunk since one of the three bodies - central west - has apparently already voted against the idea.

Why did my heart sink? Well, in tourism terms there is no such thing as inland NSW, nor can there be because of distance and variety. It's just not brandable in any real sense. Worse, promotion of this as brand just increases the brand fragmentation that already plagues NSW tourism.

I have written a fair bit on these issues. Tomorrow I will pull some of that writing together in a consolidated exploration of the failures of NSW tourism branding, with a special focus on New England.

Why Newcastle is important to self-government

  I realise that I have been running a lot of Newcastle and Hunter material - the two are not the same! - on this blog, to the point that one link classified me as a Newcastle region blogger! 

I want to make a comment on why Newcastle is important to New England. But first an excerpt from my original PhD thesis on the life of David Henry Drummond. Comments follow at the end. The photo shows Newcastle Harbour in 1900.

"In 1907 Northern New South Wales was, in relative terms, an important part of Australia. Its population was then around 400,000, only one-third less than that of Queensland, roughly equal to that of South Australia, and far higher than the population of Western Australia or Tasmania.[1] One New South Welshman in four, and thus just under one Australian in ten, lived in the North. The local world that these people knew was in many ways very different from that existing today.[2] The biggest urban concentrations in the North were, and still are, in the lower Hunter Valley: this area includes the North's biggest city, Newcastle, which had a population of 59,319 in 1911, as well as Maitland (12,377) and Cessnock (5,102). Coal was dominant in the lower Hunter, with the mines providing the main source of income. As a result the very texture of life was different from that found elsewhere in the North. Newcastle, along with Bunbury in Western Australia, was one of the last Australian ports in which sail was still a rival to steam.[3] The tall ships in the river, the lumpers who loaded them, the boarding-house proprietors who looked after and exploited the sailors, and the merchants who supplied the ships all helped create a different atmosphere. But beyond all this was the stark reality of a life dominated by the harsh rhythm of the mines. The end result was a close-knit, inward-looking and clannish community which had little in common with, and less understanding of, life elsewhere in the north. This lack of understanding was fully shared by those living further north, for they distrusted and even feared the mining and industrial interests of the lower Hunter: the tensions flowing from these differences form one of the themes of Northern history.

Further north, the population structure was very different from that existing today. Although there were at least fourteen urban centres with populations exceeding 2,000, the main towns were very much smaller. Lismore, the largest centre in 1911, had a population of only 7,381, while there were only three urban areas with populations between 5,000 and 8,000. Equally importantly, the countryside had not then been depopulated. The rural population, that is people living on farms and in centres with a population of less than 600, varied from area to area but generally made up between 43 and 60 per cent of the total population.[4] A further 16 to 23 per cent lived in towns and villages whose populations ranged between 600 and 2,000, while the proportion living in the bigger urban centres themselves ranged from 17 to 41 per cent.

The end result was a diversified population structure, ranged in a distinct hierarchy. At one extreme was the locality or rural district, whose total populations could reach several hundred. Such localities were usually, as at Arding near Uralla, centred on the school, church and tennis courts. At the other extreme were the larger towns such as Lismore, offering a relatively wide range of urban services. In the middle came a variety of towns and villages. These ranged from small settlements with perhaps just a hotel, bakery and general store, to mining centres based on tin and gold, to timber towns nestling in the hills with their small collections of unpainted weatherboard houses huddled around the mill, to medium size towns offering a wider range of services to the surrounding countryside. No matter how small, these centres generally sustained a range of community activities, such as church groups, sporting clubs and farmers' organisations. The result was a complex web of relationships, linking together both those living within the communities and the communities themselves.

Associated with this different population structure were very different transport patterns. The coast was not then linked together by railway, so that for many journeys it was easier and faster for passengers and freight to travel by coastal steamer. Inland, the train was the key form of transport, channelling passengers and freight first to Morpeth (originally the main river port on the Hunter) and Newcastle, and then, by 1907, to Sydney. However, away from the railways and steamer routes, the horse and bullock were still king. The first cars had begun to appear, but most towns were still linked by stage coach, with a posting station or inn every sixteen to twenty-one kilometres. In addition to the roads themselves, the North was linked by an intricate web of stock-routes, along which mobs of sheep and cattle moved continually.

These different settlement and transport patterns helped mould human thinking. Even with the fastest horse-drawn transport, the distance covered in a day was roughly equal to that covered by car in one hour on a modern highway; travelling as the stock moved, that hour's drive becomes a journey of more than a week. To the Northerners of 1907, their immediate world was huge, measured as it was in days, or even weeks, of travelling time. It was also more sharply focused: slower transport meant that the knowledge of the landscape was greater; insignificant valleys that today vanish in a few minutes then stood out in clear relief. Beyond all this, even though there were large areas with few or no people, it was a populated world. The posting stations and inns, the slower transport that allowed travellers to stop and chat, and the many farming settlements, meant that human life was spread across the landscape.

The heightened awareness of their immediate world helped develop strong emotional attachments between people and the districts they lived in. 'South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country,' Judith Wright later wrote of the Tablelands.[5] Such emotional links strengthened local loyalties to the point where they hindered cooperation with other towns or districts within the North. But over time they also played an important part in the development of a wider Northern loyalty. The Northerners' perception of the large size of their immediate local world was normally associated with a deep-seated belief in its development potential. When this was continually frustrated, strong local loyalties were transformed into a sustained attempt to unite the North in order to radically restructure the existing governmental system. For David Drummond, who gave his total love and loyalty to the North, this fight would provide the central cause of his political life.

---

[1]The North's ill-defined boundaries make population estimates difficult. In 1924 the North's population, based on 1921 census data and excluding the lower Hunter but including a greater proportion of the western area, was estimated at 359,000. (Report of the Royal Commission Of Inquiry into Proposals for the Establishment of a New State or New States, formed wholly or in part out of the present territory of the State of New South Wales, Government Printer, Sydney, 1925, p.19.) Adjusting this figure downwards by deleting the population growth in the main Northern towns (ex lower Hunter) during the period 1911 to 1921 (6,000), and then adding the lower Hunter main town population in 1911 (76,000), gives a Northern population estimate for 1911 of about 429,000; in these circumstances 400,000 for 1907 seems a reasonable population approximation. New South Wales as a whole had a population of 1.4 million at the 1901 census and 1.6 million at the 1911 Census. Population figures are taken from: Official Year Book of New South Wales, No. 56, Government Printer, Sydney, 1959, pp.65-66; R. Ward, A Nation For A Continent: the history of Australia 1901-1975, Heinemann Educational Australia, Richmond, 1977, p.446.

[2]The description of life in the North contained in the following paragraphs has been compiled from a variety of sources. A detailed list is set out in the bibliography; the following references are some of the main ones. For autobiographical accounts see: R.J. Doolin, A Boy From The Bush Goes To Town, Published by the author, North Star, 1973; A.E. Cosh, Jumping Kangaroos, Devill Publicity, Armidale, 1978; P.A. Wright, Memories of a Bushwacker, University of New England, Armidale, 1971; and E.C.G. Page, Truant Surgeon: The Inside Story of Forty Years of Australian Political Life, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1963. For a description of life in a smaller settlement see B.L. Cameron and J.L. McLennan, "Scots' Corner": A Local History, B.L. Cameron, Armidale, 1971. H. Brown's Tin at Tingha, Brown, Armidale, 1982, deals with life in one of the mining towns, while E. Wiedemann's World of its Own: Inverell's Early Years 1827-1920, Devill Publicity, Inverell, 1981, deals with life in a larger urban centre. N. Braithwaite and H. Beard (eds.), Pioneering in the Bellinger Valley, "The Bellinger Courier-Sun", Bellingen, 1978, give a particularly vivid feel for life on a portion of the coast. J.C. Docherty, 'The Second City. Social and Urban Change in Newcastle, New South Wales 1900-C1929', PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1977, provides an interesting analysis of Newcastle.

[3]G. Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia's History, Sun Books, South Melbourne, 1966, p.279ff.

[4]The figures in this and the next sentence are drawn from: D.A. Aitkin, The Country Party in New South Wales. A Study of Organisation and Survival, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972, p.5. Since Aitkin's figures are mainly drawn from the 1921 census, they probably understate rural populations for the pre-war period.

[5]From 'South Of My Days', J. Wright, Collected Poems: 1942-1970, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1975, p.20."

Comment

One of the themes in the history of Northern NSW, the broader New England that I write about, are the tensions and differences between Newcastle and the areas further north. My purpose in writing in the way I did in the excerpt was to paint a scene, to set a framework, for things that would be important later.

Newcastle was always different, but always part of the North. The differences meant that those seeking self-government for New England often excluded Newcastle from the proposed area. They felt, correctly, that the political, cultural and economic differences were such that it could imperil the self-government cause. The problem was that Newcastle was part of the North, making it difficult to exclude the city.

Today, similar issues arise. To accommodate that, those of us seeking self-government for New England argue that the final boundaries must be based on the will of the people expressed through referendum. If Newcastle wants to stay part of NSW, then so be it. Further, if the difficulties involved in getting a meld, then maybe there should be two states, once centred on the Hunter, one further north. Again, it comes back to the will of the people of New England.

I write wearing different hats. When I write as an historian, I must write on the history of the North including Newcastle. It makes no sense otherwise.    

The next photo shows the construction of wool stores at Newcastle. Wool selling did not come to Newcastle because the merchants of Newcastle wanted it, although they did. It came because those further north wanted it so badly that they were able to overcome the opposition of the Sydney wool merchants.

The campaign for self-government for Northern NSW, New England, is now 160 years old. Today, a cause that seemed dead after the 1967 no vote in Newcastle and the southern coal mining and dairy electorates and the collapse of the then new state movement is slowly building. This time, there is support in Newcastle.

I am not blind to the difficulties involved in re-creating a movement that, by its nature, is opposed or even ridiculed by the status quo. We have been there before. The immediate aim now is to get another referendum. Let us vote again.

This time, however, we must have support in Newcastle. Further, and regardless of one state or two or final boundaries, we have to rebuild the links across the North. Nenco, wool selling at Newcastle, shows the way. If those further north are prepared to support Newcastle, if Newcastle people are prepared to support those further north, then real change is possible.

Idealistic? Maybe. But the existing system certainly hasn't worked.  

Central Coast becomes official region

This heading may make you blink as it did me. The Central Coast not a region? 

A tweet from My Central Coast led me to this story from the Central Coast Express Advocate. 

It's official at last - the Central Coast is to be recognised as a separate region by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) from July 1.

Gosford and Wyong councils and the Central Coast NSW Business Chamber have welcomed the decision after years of lobbying by the community.

The coast will be recognised as a “statistical area 4”, the largest type of region below state level.

“Being included as a separate region is a great win for the region and the last significant classification required to get regional recognition for the Central Coast,” business chamber president Ken Baker said.

“We’ve proudly believed that the Central Coast deserves a better go from government and getting the right ABS data sets in place will help support our campaigns in the future.”

Gosford Mayor Laurie Maher said: “This is a victory for common sense considering that the coast has a population larger than Canberra and is expected to grow significantly over the coming decades,” Cr Maher said.

Wyong Mayor Doug Eaton said the recognition would place the coast in a better position to support its growth and development.

Mr Baker said the recognition would get its first big test with the Australian 2011 Census due to be collected later this year.

For the benefit of readers who don't know Australia, the Central Coast lies between Sydney and Lake Macquarie and the Hunter Valley. So it's just to the south of the traditional New England or Northern NSW boundaries.

I have often spoken of the way that official structures and classifications have on-ground effects. Clearly, the Central Coast is and always has been a region in geographic terms. However, it has suffered greatly, as has the broader New England, from it's statistical treatment.

For ABS purposes, it has been treated as part of the Sydney Statistical Division. For many planning purposes, it has simply been added to Sydney. Indeed, the boundary of Metropolitan Sydney, the way that areas are treated for planning purposes, has been progressively pushed north to include the Lower Hunter. Not only does this ignore one region, the Central Coast, but it actually bifurcates a second, the Hunter.

So long as planning centres in Sydney, areas like the Central Coast or the Lower Hunter will be treated as outliers of the metro centre. That is why many in the Hunter want the the present Sydney city rail system broken up to create a Hunter Valley equivalent.

Many in the Central Coast had reservations about the creation of a new state in Northern NSW because they feared that it would lock them out, lock them further into Sydney. The reverse is true.

In reality, the links between the Hunter and Central Coast mean that with the creation of a New England state, the Sydney Government would be forced by the very existence of New England to look at the Central Coast in new ways. We have seen this already in other border areas. The position of the Central Coast would actually be greatly strengthened.    

Is Bellingen hospital safe?

I received an email during the week from a colleague concerned that the campaign to save/redevelop Bellingen Hospital was losing traction in the face of national changes to health services, apparent promises from the authorities and, I suspect, sheer tiredness.  In this context, the Bellingen Hospital Action Group (BHAG) apparently put out a statement at the end of last year saying they had a commitment from the North Coast Area Health Service to keep the acute beds in the hospital and that the job was done. You will find some of my past posts on this campaign here.

I am not close enough to on-ground issues to make a response on the specifics in the email. However, noting that the BHAG web site is now down, I thought that I should make some general comments based on my own experience. In particular, I feel that now is just the time when those served by the Hospital need to be most focused. This post explains why.

Impact of National Changes  

Back in April last year in Implications for New England from health reforms I took Bellingen Hospital as a case study. There I said in part:

One of the problems for New England from the changes is just what the changes might mean at local level. This is quite complicated, but I think that locals need to watch this like a hawk 

Since that post, I have tried to monitor the on-ground effects of the changes across New England, but it is quite difficult without detailed investigative reporting of a type beyond the resources of a part time blogger. However, my view remains the same. We just don't know how things will work in practice.

Mid North Coast Local Health Network & the formation of Government Policy

The new Mid North Coast Local Health Network came into operation on 1 January 2011. Very little information is yet available on its web site. Members of the Governing Council are listed, but no information is provided that I could find as to their background.

In two Armidale Express columns last year,  Belshaw's World - true wisdom rarely the sum of bland numbers and then Belshaw's World - round holes, square pegs and a region cruelled, I looked at the way Government policy is formed. 

While the new Network is smaller and has its own Council, while there is meant to be greater local input, the reality is that it is still operating in a highly centralised system, all the statistical data and planning reports on which past policies were based are still there, as are the people who made the planning decisions.

All the national agreements governing the new system with their myriad of performance statements were negotiated and will be implemented by just the same officials involved with previous policies. You can think of all this as an inverted pyramid whose point rests on the hospital. It would be unrealistic to expect much to change.

Continuity of Official Memory

Officials have quite long memories. If they fail to get things up one way, they will do so another. Let me illustrate by example.

Some years ago, the Commonwealth Government formed the view that Australia needed fewer but larger tertiary institutions. As so often happens in health, this was applied as a one size fits all approach.

As part of the process, the Government announced that the Armidale College of Advanced Education and the University of New England should merge. There was no justification for any small centre to have two tertiary institutions. Further, merger would save money by reducing the overhead associated with two institutions, the economies of scale argument.

I was opposed to the decision because the culture and missions of the two institutions were different, while I doubted the validity of the policy arguments. A friend and I organised a protest that culminated in a public meeting attended by several thousand people. The proposal was shelved. However, the official view had not gone away.

The proposal was resurrected a little later by the subsequent Hawke Government on advice from the same officials. This time it went through. Since it was intended in part to achieve economies of scale, the combined funding of the two institutions was reduced by an amount equal to the expected savings. No allowance was made for the costs of merger. The end result of all the changes was something of a disaster that almost destroyed the University of New England.

The Importance of Persistence

If what I say is true, why bother? Surely locals are powerless? Not so.

If you want to do something new, if you want to achieve change, then you have to be persistent. It may be that you will fail in the longer term, in which case you only get some short term gains as happened in the Armidale case. Still, in writing the history of the broader New England as I am at the present time, a remarkably large number of things were achieved by local or regional action undertaken in the face of entrenched opposition.

The Problem of Capture

Anybody dealing with Government faces a problem of what we call capture.

Ministers and officials have positions, refined arguments and lots of supporting information. Faced with entrenched opposition on a matter, they try to find find a path through. This includes giving concessions. 

On the other side, those dealing with Government generally cannot help being influenced by discussion and argument. Depending on persistence and relative power positions, the outcome moves towards some form of compromise. One side-effect of this is that the opposition actually ends up being captured by official thinking.

This is not necessarily wrong. However, it carries the risk that people will give up at just the time they should be persistent.

I am not suggesting opposition for the sake of opposition, nor that compromises should not be reached. Indeed, from my experience, one major problem with local activism can be the unwillingness to accept any middle path. Sometimes this works. More often, it can lead to total failure. It's a matter for judgement as to the best path.

The key thing is to be aware of the strategic issues involved. Some issues, a dam for example, may be yes/no. Others like a hospital are much longer term. These issues inevitably involve both compromise and persistence.

Burn-out and the Long Term Activist

Unlike governments, lobby groups or political parties with their full time staff, community activism depends upon volunteers. This makes it very difficult to keep long term pressure up. People, and I am speaking from my own experience, just burn out.

There is no easy answer to this. Sometimes it just happens. At other times, changes in direction are required to give people a break. Bellingen may well be in this position now.

Looking Forward

I think that BHAG has actually done a pretty good job through its own efforts and in providing a centre around which others could coalesce through, among other things, the Facebook page. There is no doubt in my mind that Bellingen Hospital would have lost more services without this effort. However, the story does not end here.

The fight over Bellingen Hospital was never about a single service. Rather, it was an attempt to maintain the best range of possible services. The fact that the old North Coast Area Health Service has given an undertaking re emergency beds is a first step that needs to be monitored. The focus should now shift to other services and the maintenance of community  support for the hospital.

I have written this post just from a Bellingen perspective. However, there is a broader issue.

Australia is short of doctors. The desire of the NSW Government to save money, to gain greater economies, has actually led to a sharp decline in certain types of medical training. The positions have gone.

Here we have a conflict between two objectives, immediate economy and efficiency on one side, longer term doctor supply on the other. Today, there is a fair bit of discussion about the best way of re-building medical training to increase supply. This requires new approaches.

Training cannot be done just at major base hospitals. We need a hierarchy of hospitals linked to different types of training. This is where a hospital like Bellingen could come in.

Re-imagining Newcastle - and the North

In Wednesday Forum: Re-imagining Newcastle, I posed this question:

To help you here, assume that there is suddenly a New England state. Newcastle as the biggest city, bigger still if we include the surrounding urban areas, suddenly has an opportunity to carve out a new and independent role free of previous constraints. What would you advise?

I then asked a set of further questions intended to stimulate discussion. In response, Greg said:

Hi Jim,
I have been trying to think of a response to this post, but it is a tough one. Newcastle has all the essential elements of a truly interesting and great city, but is stuck in a 1950's time warp that it can't escape from.

Consider this. In 1950 Brisbane, Perth and Newcastle were similar in size. Brisbane had a metropolitan population of about 440,000 people, Perth 340,000 and Newcastle 300,000. Just 60 years on and Brisbane (1.9m) and Perth (1.6m) have powered ahead in size and relative importance. Newcastle (1/2 m) has languished and been left in their wake - still an "overgrown country town".

Newcastle's relative decline mirrors that of the entire Northern NSW compared to Qld and WA. Newcastle is northern NSW in microcosm.

How do Newcastle and Northern NSW break out of this rut? Short of self-government I really don't know. I believe that self-government would of itself be a catalyst for change in the way others see us and the way we see ourselves. The tangible benefits would inevitably follow.

Greg's comment draws out the scale of the decline in Newcastle's importance. In response, I wrote:

I agree with you re self-government. In the meantime, and as part of our push for self-government, we have to get people to focus on the needs of Northern NSW as a unit and in terms of individual areas. We can use the push for self-government as a way of doing this.

One might argue that this threatens our longer term objective. The more we get, the lower the demand for self-government. I don't see it this way. I just don't believe that Sydney can reconcile the conflicts involved in governing an entity that no longer makes any form of sense.

Re-imagining the North is hard. But in doing so, we achieve a number of things. We get New Englanders to again think of themselves as a unit. We force Sydney responses. And we start to lay down a platform - a set of ideas - that our own Government can implement.

As Greg found, as I have found, it is not easy to imagine what might be when what is imposes seemingly impossible constraints. Yet we need to do this if we are to force change.

In my next post I will risk my hand by painting a vision of Newcastle's future. It is a risk because I do not live there, do not pretend to be an expert on on-ground conditions. 

Tamworth, GPs & rental housing

I reported on Tamworth's GP shortage In February this year (Tamworth GPs close their books) and then again in July (Update on Tamworth GP shortage). Now there is a new twist to the story.

According to a report by Alysia Ferguson in the Northern Daily Leader, Rental crisis looms for new doctors, rental accommodation in Tamworth is now so short that medicos who do want to come are struggling to find places to rent.

I blinked a bit, but then realised that this was an example of a broader problem. I just wanted to broadbrush this for later discussion, following up on a post I did in March, Conundrums with New England real estate.

Recently, Tamworth's growth has picked up, something of a trend across inland New England. This quickly creates a housing problem.

Inland New England centres who have experienced relatively slow population growth, even declines in some cases, do not have large stocks of serviced blocks available for development. Further, the stock of rental housing is not high. In some smaller centres, there may be none at all.

Earlier this year, the Federal Government's stimulus package took a slab of housing out of the normal rental marketplace. The first home buyers grant increased house prices and reduced housing rental availability at the lower end of the marketplace. Then the social housing programs with their focus on quick to market developments reduced stock in the development pipeline.

In saying this, I am not being critical of the programs, although I was very critical at the time of the increased grants relating to existing house. I am simply commenting on the effects.

With reduced stocks and some growth, the rental marketplace is primed to go critical.

When you consider that inland towns generally have lots of land nearby, there really shouldn't be a housing shortage outside short term effects. The problem, at least as I see it, is that it NSW Government rules and taxes now make it so difficult and expensive to both develop land and then build houses that it can take a long time for new stock to become available.

This problem holds across the state. However, it is actually most acute in areas where stocks are small. In Sydney, life becomes more difficult and expensive, but the city limps by. In country areas, it can quickly become an absolute growth stopper.

There is, I think, a measure of agreement that it would be better if population growth were to be better spread. If this is to happen, we have to reduce Government imposed barriers to growth.

In fairness, the current NSW Government has taken steps to reduce fees and charges. Further, in the case of Guyra it has been prepared to join with council in funding a new green fields land development. That said, its rules and controls still accentuate the problem.  Real change is needed.  

Yet more problems with NSW official projections

Oh my God, I get so tired of commenting on silliness.

The latest population projections released by NSW Planning show:

• the population of the Northern Statistical Division, really the Northern Tablelands and Slopes declining from 180,000 in 2006 to 168,000 in 2036
• the population of Armidale city declining from 20,500 in 2006 to 18,000 in 2036
• the population of Uralla LGA declining from 6,000 in 2006 to 5,600 in 2036
• the population of Guyra LGA declining from 4,400 in 2006 to 3,900 in 2036
• the population of Glen Innes declining from 9,200 in 2006 to 7,600 in 2036.
• and so it goes on.

I am aware of all the assumptions and uncertainties involved in population projections, but given the importance of the projections for planning purposes, you shouldn't put them on the record without an on-ground validity check. Just for the record, on the latest estimates population increases since the 2006 census have been:

1. Armidale LGA up from 24,607 to 25,696
2. Uralla LGA up from 6,007 to 6,238
3. Guyra LGA up from 4,416 to 4,521
4. Glen Innes up from 9,159 to 9,257

Accepting that Armidale city and LGA are different classifications, the numbers don't stack up. Our problem is that projections based on what was that ignore both subsequent changes and what should be, then get built into official planning and can become self-fulfilling prophecies.   

Who speaks for the Hunter?

One issue that has been coming through quite strongly in comments on Hunter Valley media and also on this blog is the perception that planning and Government actions in the Hunter lack coordination and vision. I asked in response to one comment just what bodies were responsible for providing an integrated voice across the Hunter. My respondent wasn't sure, so I went to do some digging.

There is actually a Minister for the Hunter, presently Jodi McKay, the Member for Newcastle. The Minster's role is not very clear, nor is that of her portfolio. If you follow the portfolio link through, you come to the NSW Premier's & Cabinet web site. However, there is no identifiable structure that I can find within P&C that represents the Hunter Ministry. There also appear to be no ministerial press releases as such, although Jodi McKay's electorate web site has some in her role as member.

The NSW State Plan is meant to provide an over-arching framework for development and service delivery within the state. This includes a part labelled Hunter Local Action Plan. This is essentially a list of activities.

   NSW Planning has a section on its web site entitled Hunter Region. When you click on this you find that there is a Lower Hunter Regional Strategy. The rest of the Valley is not covered beyond an earlier assessment  on coal mining in the Upper Hunter.

Beyond any Hunter specific strategies, the Valley is affected by a myriad of other State activities and action plans. So I continued digging to see what might encourage cooperation and coordination between the various councils on one side and all the other bodies affecting the Valley.

Looked at in this way, I found:

• Regional Development Australia - Hunter. This is in fact the rebadged name of the old Hunter Economic Development Corporation. All the regional development boards have had their name changed.
• Hunter Advantage, a business promotion body.
• Hunter Tourism, the Hunter Regional Tourism Organisation.
• Hunter Valley Research Foundation, the now venerable and successful Valley research body.
• Industry Development Centre (Hunter).
• Hunter Business Chamber.

I am sure that there are many other bodies. These were the ones I found through a quick search.

I accept that this post is an incomplete analysis. I think, though, that I can see why the Hunter appears so fragmented.

Problems with New England statistics

Greg wrote in a comment on New State arguments 1 - introduction:

Jim,
Much is made of Australia's "two speed" economy with WA cited as the boom state on the back of mining. Meanwhile an accusing finger is pointed at NSW as being a drag on the national economy.

However, I cannot find any data about how New England fares in the scheme of things. I suspect that it is doing a great deal better than the rest of NSW. Hunter coal is certainly a vital contributor. If NSW looks sick despite having such a strong regional performance in the north then the rest of the state must be in an even poorer shape than the figures show.

Is there any data that shows the relative performance of NSW regions and how that impacts on planning and infrastructure investment for the regions and for NSW as a whole? If it is there then it is hard to find. The statistics all seem to be compiled on a state by state basis without regard to relative diversity of state economies and their respective regional areas. That makes it hard to get a feel for what is really happening.

Greg's comment goes to a heart of a problem that I have talked about before on this blog. Because New England does not exist as a constitutional entity, it is not recognised in the statistics. We have less statistics for New England, population 1.4 million, than we do for Tasmania, the ACT or the Northern Territory,

The general state wide statistics are dominated by Sydney.

Around 63% of the NSW population of around 7 million lives in what is called the Sydney Statistical Division. This is not quite the same as the traditional definition of Sydney, for it includes the Blue Mountains and Central Coast. Further, because most of the higher level jobs are in Sydney, this pulls up Sydney averages.

The census data provides a snapshot of conditions at a point in time. Census data is collected on a  collection district basis, and then totaled to, for example, LGAs. You can get ABS to do special runs by specifying coverage. I generally work by aggregating LGAs because this is simpler, although you have to watch changing LGA boundaries.

Census data forms the basis for much state government planning because it is the most complete. Between censuses, the State Government uses projections based on past trends for planning purposes. This is usually done at a regional level, although in some cases small area studies are used. Some but not all the regional data is published.

A particular problem here is that the Government uses various regional definitions depending on its purposes. An example is the frequent inclusion of the Clarence Valley in the Mid North Coast as compared to the Northern Rivers. This can make it hard to put the data into a consistent structure.

Between census periods, very little social or economic performance data is available on a sub-state level. This actually creates significant planning problems where resource allocation decisions are involved.

Some small area tourism data is collected by ABS, while ABS also provides building approval data on an LGA basis plus some LGA population estimates. Housing NSW rent and sale reports provide some rental and sales. This is on an LGA basis for the Greater Metropolitan Region (this includes the Lower Hunter), regionally aggregated for the rest of the state.

The NSW Business Chamber/Commonwealth Bank publishes a survey of business conditions. This includes a break-up for both Illawarra and Hunter regions, as well as aggregated data for the rest of the state outside Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra. The most recent data did indeed suggest that business conditions in the Hunter were more positive than those in Sydney.

As you can see, it's quite difficult to build up a clear picture of key variables and trends across the North. Quite a bit of my own analysis over the last year or so has been concerned just to lay down a base for further analysis. See, for example:

• New England demography 1 - rise of the coast
• New England demography 2 - problems with projections

I have at least one more post to go to complete this current series.  

The importance of regional environmental impact statements

Peter Firminger drew my attention to a story posted on Wollombi Valley Against Gas Extraction (WAGE) by Graeme Gibson.

I have spoken before about the environmental wars raging across New England. I have also discussed the way in which they create patterns of winners and losers, without adequate compensation being paid to those adversely affected. Mining royalties, for example, have recently been the only revenue growth area for the Sydney Government, yielding it revenue while many of the costs are bourne locally.

I am cautious about commenting on local issues where I do not know the details. I am also aware of the NIMBY (not in my backyard) principle. However, in this case Graeme made a broader comment that I think is of considerable importance.

At present, EIS's are project specific. However, where you get a number of projects, individual EIS's can be a very inadequate tool for measuring aggregate effects. The reason for this lies in what economists call externalities, the presence of costs and benefits extending beyond the project that are not always easily captured or measures.

A good project specific EIS will try to at least recognise and assess these. However, where you have multiple projects, external costs and benefits can compound in ways that may go unrecognised. Take a road system as an example. If traffic effects are considered serially on a project by project basis, then the total costs may never be recognised properly.

In his post, Graeme states:

A community deputation to Minister for Mineral Resources, Ian Macdonald on 23^rd March, 2010, proposed that before there was any further mineral development of the Hunter Valley, that the NSW Government require a full Environmental Study of all current, future and cumulative impacts of coal mining, coal seam gas exploration/extraction, hot rock power stations and Defence Forces activity. The full submission can be found at http://tinyurl.com/hvpa-MinisterA (189kb PDF)

This idea of a regional EIS strikes me as very sensible in circumstances where multiple projects are known. To my mind, it is the only way of fully assessing total impacts.

Of course, all such studies are subject to weaknesses. Further, they may make development more difficult, a not inconsiderable objection. But without them, aggregate effects simply cannot be assessed properly.      

The fragmentation of NSW

This piece is something of a thought piece, triggered by some recent trends. While I do refer to past posts, I am not giving links. I am simply getting ideas down.

Background

When the NSW Government first released its State Plan, I gave it the credit to take it seriously. I first analysed social and economic trends within New England to create a framework for the analysis of the Plan itself. I then looked at the structure and detail of the Plan itself and compared this with my analysis of New England's needs.

While I gave the Government full credit for its efforts, I concluded that the plan was too bitsy, simply an aggregation of existing targets and performance indicators. Even if every target in the plan was achieved, my conclusion was that its practical effect in meeting New England's needs would be negligible. I note that the Plan is presently being updated. This may change my conclusions.

Subsequently, the NSW Government released a series of strategies focused on actions required to meet projected population growth in Sydney and along the NSW coastal strip. Again I analysed them. I concluded that they were mechanistic. I also doubted that that the population targets were achievable, given that the assumptions seemed to imply a continued drift in population from inland NSW that I thought was unlikely to eventuate. If anything, and taking inland NSW as a whole, I thought that pattern of decline was beginning to reverse itself.

Since I wrote, higher levels of overseas migration have changed the equation somewhat.

Population growth in Greater Sydney has always been heavily determined by the combination of overseas migration with emigration from the city. Sydney has always attracted migrants, although its share of the total Australian migrant intake is, I think, showing signs of structural decline.  At the same time, Sydney has been loosing population for many decades from out-migration to coastal NSW and to Queensland.

Sydney's overall growth depends on the balance between the two. An increase in the rate of natural population combined with very high overseas migration levels means that rate of population growth in Greater Sydney has increased quite noticeably.

Assuming no change to current high levels of overseas migration, no further change in Sydney's share of the total migrant intake and no increase in the rate of emigration from Sydney, the original population projections look more likely. However, I remain cautious.

  If you look at my comments to this point, I am obviously critical of the way the NSW Government approaches its role. However, in saying this I am also conscious of the way in which the progressive fragmentation of NSW, something unique to NSW, has progressively constrained the freedom of the NSW government. Sydney still tries to manage NSW as though it was a meaningful unit, whereas it is in fact a a political and statistical construct made up of increasingly disparate parts.

It is this issue of fragmentation that I want to address in this post.

The Marchland Concept

In looking at the geographic basis of support for the New England New State Movement, the geographer Eric Woolmington suggested that this was greatest where the relative spheres of influence of Sydney and Brisbane overlapped. Using catchment analysis based on population distributions, he defined a theoretical boundary. This placed much of the Northern Rivers and the Northern Tablelands within the Brisbane sphere.

He then used a variety of measures to identify the actual boundary of influence. This placed the boundary much further north, if south of the formal geographic boundary. He concluded that the strongest new state support lay in the geographic area between the theoretical boundary and the formal boundary, with support rising as the formal boundary was a approached.

Similar analysis can be applied to the Riverina, the other area of NSW with sustained support for home rule. In the case of the Riverina, there is a further rough measure that you can use, the sporting boundary between Australian Football and Rugby League.

With time, the spheres of influence of Melbourne and especially Brisbane have expanded, moving north and south respectively. Increasingly, NSW Government policy and service delivery has to take into account Victorian and Queensland needs and positions.

Rise of the ACT

The real kicker in all this is the rise of the ACT, a rise concealed in part by State based statistics.

The following map shows what is now called the Australian Capitol Territory region. This is the area now classified as falling under the influence of metropolitan Canberra where coordinated action is required between the NSW, ACT and local governments. To put numbers on it, around 351,000 people live in Canberra, a further 256,000 people live in NSW in local government areas classified as belonging to the Australian Capital Territory Region, 607,000 people in all.                

The ABS population projections based on various alternative assumptions suggest that by 2056 the ACT's population will be in the range 374,000 to 683,000.

The lower figure is simply not credible given a current estimated population of 351,000. Canberra will grow as the Commonwealth Government grows, even allowing for a spill-over of population into adjoining regions. If the ACT were to reach 683,000 and if the surrounding area were to grow at the same rate, we are looking at an ACT region population of around 1.2 million sitting just next door to the Sydney conurbation. 

Impact of Fragmenation

The overall impact of the processes that I have been talking about can be summarised in this way.

In the North, the Tweed and Richmond River valleys are increasingly affected by and to a degree integrated into the growing SE Queensland conurbation. You can actually see this in some of the language used by the NSW Government. The traditional term Northern Rivers has dropped from use, with the Clarence River Valley increasingly classified as Mid North Coast. For planning purposes, the NSW Government now classifies the Richmond and Tweed Valleys as Far North Coast, while the Clarence Valley is Mid North coast.

In the South East, Canberra has increasingly become the driver. However, there real oddities here:

• Sometimes, the NSW portion of the ACT region - the South East - is called the South East and seems to be classified as coastal in NSW official material, when the coastal strip itself only has 29.5% of the NSW region's population. This actually distorts statistics and approach.
• Then, for NSW planning purposes, the South Coast is defined as Bega and Eurobodalla LGAs (Capital Region) plus Shoalhaven to the North. This is pretty much the traditional definition of the South Coast equivalent to the old definition of the North Coast as the coast north of the Hunter Valley. Also for planning purposes, there is another regional classification called the Sydney-Canberra corridor which includes six of of the 15 or so LGAs in the Australian Capital Region plus an Alpine Strategy focused on the resorts. The missed country LGAs appear to fall outside the land use planning process.    

Then to the west of the ACT region we have the area along the Murray increasingly affected by Victoria. This is covered by a Murray Planning Strategy that does explicitly recognise the need for integration on both side of the river.

Even at this level of analysis you can see how confused, confusing and fragmented the whole thing has become.

If we look at the rest of the state land-use planning documents, there are strategies for the illawarra, Metropolitan Sydney, Central Coast and Hunter. This means that planning documents exist for the full coastal strip that generally follow traditional geographical boundaries except, as already noted, in the Northern Rivers area.

All of the state west of the Dividing Range is, with the exception of those areas actually covered by existing plans such as Murray and the Sydney-Canberra corridor simply lumped as Western with a plan to be developed. This makes no geographic sense at all.

This has become quite a long post and has taken a fair bit of time to write. I have a fair bit more material, but this can wait.