New England Australia Demography - Stocktake of posts as at 28 September 2007

Now that the results of the latest Australian census are out and I want to write some more on New England's demography, it seems sensible to do a stocktake of previous posts linked in some way to that demography.

A list follows in more or less chronological order.

Friday 7 July 2006. The past is always present - the Country Party discusses the enduring influence of different European settlement patterns on politics in different parts of NSW.

On 14 November 2006 I began a series of posts examining the NSW State Government's new ten year plan from a New England perspective. Assumptions about demography are central to the plan.

In NSW Ten Year Plan - New England's Needs I set out my perceptions of the needs the plan might meet. This post includes supporting demographic data. My next post, Does the NSW Ten Year Plan Meet New England's Needs?, looked at the structure and objectives of the plan against the needs as I saw them. My conclusions were not positive. This was followed by a concluding post, NSW Ten Year Plan and New England - Conclusions, drawing the analysis together.

On 18 January 2007 in Sydney Government releases draft Mid-North Coast strategy I reported the release of the the Government's strategy for this area as defined by them. Assumptions about population growth are central to this strategy.

I followed this with a post on 23 January, Sydney Government's Coastal Planning Strategies, looking at the coastal strategies as a whole. I was again very critical of the demographic assumptions.

On 5 August 2007 in Sydney's Sluggish Population Growth, I commented on Sydney's growth compared to the other capital cities, querying again the Sydney Government's planning assumptions.

New England's indigenous people spread across many posts.

New England's indigenous population is significantly higher than the national average, with the distribution of the population affected not just by natural increase, but by migration within and beyond New England. All this makes, or should make, issues relating to Aboriginal economic and social development a key policy concern.

In Australia's Aborigines - a Note on Demography (21 December 2006) I looked in a preliminary way at migration patterns. On 7 March 2007 in NSW's Aboriginal Population I provided some data on the regional distribution of Aboriginal people.

One of the points that I made in my analysis of the NSW Government's Ten Year Plan was the need for economic development if New England's problems, including those of its Aboriginal people, were to be properly addressed.

On 4 March 2007 in New England's Poor Towns - a failure in public policy I commented on work done by Professor Vinson that nearly all the poorest and most socially disadvantaged towns and villages in NSW could be found in New England. I followed this in quick succession a second post on the same day - New England and the Immiseration of Public Policy - that extended my argument in a somewhat angry fashion.

On 31 July, in Rental Stress in New England I reported that the top three, and four of the top ten, electorates in NSW suffering rental stress were in New England. The census data provides an opportunity to extend my economic and social analysis in a more rigorous fashion.

Finally, I have yet too look properly at the various ethnic and national groups that have contributed to New England's evolution, although I have referred to it in passing in various posts. However, I have made an in initial foray here with New England's Chinese - Introductory Post (26 February 2007).

Previous Stocktakes

• Aborigines: New England's Aborigines - Stocktake on Posts as at 24 March 2007. Updated 7 June 2007
• Education - The Armidale School (TAS) - collected posts entry page
• Education - University of New England: University of New England - Stocktake of Posts as at 5 November 2006.
• Food & Wine: Stocktake Food & Wine Posts up to 24 September 06
• History: Historical posts up to 7 September 06. See also New England's History blog
• Transport: New England Australia - Stocktake on Transport Posts 24 October 06
• Writing: The poetry of Judith Wright - entry page

New England and the NSW Budget 2011

I have been dredging my way through the NSW budget papers trying to make an assessment of the likely impact on New England. Those who are interested can find the budget papers link here.

It's remarkably difficult to do, in part because New England doesn't exist in a formal sense so data isn't organised in that way, in part because so much depends upon the detail of individual agency plans. The one thing that we can be reasonably certain of is that the great majority of the extra billion in mining royalties will come from New England and especially the Hunter.

While digging around, I found that the new Government has released its own state plan to replace the previous Labor Government plan. 

I will try to do at least some form of rough assessment of both from a New England perspective over the next day or so. As I have argued before, unless we have some idea of just what is being done to us compared to New England's needs then a sensible response is extremely difficult.

For those who are interested, my posts on the previous Government's plan were:

• 14 November 2006, NSW Ten Year Plan - New England's needs
• 16 November 2006, Does the NSW Ten Year Plan meet New England's needs?
• 18 November 2006, NSW Ten Year Plan and New England - Conclusions 
• 19 November 2006, NSW Ten Year Plan - praiseworthy but flawed

NSW Ten Year Plan and New England - Conclusions

This is the last of my immediate posts on the implications of the NSW Government's Ten Year Plan for New England.

The two immediate posts took a huge amount of time to prepare. The date on the posts is the date I started writing each one. In fact, between them they took the best part of two full days to complete.

For reasons I will explain in a moment, I have come to a very negative conclusion. I may be wrong here and as much as possible I have tried to make my arguments transparent. I welcome corrections and discussions.

Good planning starts with an understanding of the needs to be met. For that reason, my first post looked at New England's needs. As a single person, even a well informed one, I cannot pretend to understand every need across New England. Still, as best I could, I tried to work out and present at least some of the key needs.

The second post looks at the detail of the Plan against identified needs. The Plan is a long document with considerable detail. I may well have got things wrong. Again, I am happy to be corrected on errors.

As I see it, the gap between the Plan and New England's needs is huge.

For reasons outlined in the first post, New England needs economic development. This is, I think, the weakest area of the Plan in a general sense. There is nothing in the Plan that will help New England meet its development needs.

New England also faces an aging population. Here our problem is much greater than that facing Sydney. While there are activities within the Plan that relate to aging, they are spread across priority areas and are not integrated in any way. In fact, the Plan does not regard aging as a key issue at all.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, the Plan does not address the issue of integration and coordination within New England.

This is important across a range of areas. In technical education, for example, the limited population and economic base in each locality or small sub-regional area limits what can be done. However, this problem can be addressed in part through cooperation and resource sharing.

Beyond these examples, my simple analysis identified a number of other priority areas that are either not addressed or addressed imperfectly in the Plan.

A core problem is that Sydney and New England are in fundamental and uneven economic competition. New England needs to attract people and investment from Sydney or that might otherwise have gone to Sydney.

Take tourism as an example. To really increase visitor traffic and spend, New England has to develop itself as a destination in its own right. This is very hard when the place is treated as a series of disconnected localities and regions.

My ability to influence things through this blog is obviously limited. But what I can do is to continue to try to present the broader New England, to use my analytical skills to look at things in new ways.

Does the NSW Ten Year Plan meet New England's needs?

My previous post on the NSW Government's new ten year plan looked at New England's needs in order to set a benchmark against which the plan could be considered.

Overview of the Plan

The State Plan aims to deliver better results for the NSW community from Government services by setting clear priorities for Government action, "with challenging targets for improvement to guide decision making and resource allocation."

The Plan focuses on five areas of activity of the NSW Government:

• Rights, Respect and Responsibility - the justice system and services that promote community involvement and citizenship
• Delivering Better Services - the key areas of service delivery to the whole population (health, education, transport)
• Fairness and Opportunity - services that promote social justice and reduce disadvantage
• Growing Prosperity Across NSW - activities that promote productivity and economic growth, including in rural and regional NSW
• Environment for Living - planning, environmental protection, and arts and recreation.

The Plan attempts to identify specific, measurable priorities for Government action that will help the Government "achieve each of the results over the next 10 years. These 34 priorities will drive the actions and decisions of Government."

Approach to Plan

Each section of the Plan includes analysis relevant to Greater Sydney, this now appears to include Newcastle, and then the rest of NSW.

In analysing the Plan my sole focus is on New England and its longer term needs. To this end, I have ranked some popular political concerns low simply because, while popular in political terms, they do little to address New England's longer term needs.

I have broken the analysis up by the activity areas as defined in the Plan.

Rights, Respects and Responsibilities

This, the first section of the plan, is its law and order section. Its goals are defined as:

• Keeping people safe through reduced rates of crime, particularly violent crime and reduced re-offending
• Building harmonious communities through reduced rates of anti-social behaviour and increased participation and integration in community activities.

I have put this entire section of the plan aside as lower priority in terms of New England's longer term needs. Yes, there are law and order issues in parts of New England. However, problems such as criminal activities among young Aboriginals in certain communities flow from economic and social disadvantage and can only be rectified by reducing that disadvantage.

Delivering Better Services

The goals for this part of the plan are defined as:

• Healthy communities through timely access to quality health care, improved survival rates and quality of life for people with potentially fatal or chronic illness and improved health through reduced obesity, smoking, drug use and risk drinking
• Students fulfil their potential with increasing levels of attainment for all students and more students completing Year 12 or recognised vocational training
• An effective transport system with an increasing share of peak hour journeys on a safe and reliable public transport system and with reduced road fatalities relative to size of NSW population
• Customer friendly services with increased customer satisfaction

Among these goals I have put aside the last, customer friendly service, as a subsidiary objective relative to New England's needs. While important, it is something that should be done anyway.

Delivering Better Services - Health

Specific priorities on the health side are defined as:

• Priority S1: Improved access to quality health care. Specific target performance benchmarks are set for access to emergency departments and elective surgery. The Plan also points to increasing access to services in rural and remote communities through implementation of the Better Rural Health Plan. These services include cardiology, renal dialysis and cancer treatment. There is also a commitment to develop new models of care to expand access to specialists and their services in rural and remote communities.
• Priority S2: Improve survival rates and quality of life for people with potentially fatal or chronic illness through improvements in health care . The state wide target is to reduce the number of potentially avoidable deaths for people under 75 to 150 per 100,000 population by 2016. There is a commitment to further develop clinical service networks to improve access to specialist services for rural communities, including expansion of specialist outreach services, transport initiatives, diagnostic and therapeutic video conference support and innovative health programs for indigenous and non-indigenous people.
• Priority S3: Improved health through reduced obesity, smoking, illicit drug use and risk drinking. Again measurable state wide targets are set.

In broad terms, achievement of the objectives set for health will benefit New England depending on current performance gaps in New England and the final results in New England. The problem with state averages is that an average improvement may be achieved through an improvement in Sydney with no improvement elsewhere.

A further difficulty lies in the fact that the health plan is not really a plan, implementation details are light, but a set of performance objectives.

Delivering Better Services - Education

Specific education priorities are:

• Priority S4: Increasing levels of attainment for all students. Targets here are defined in these terms:
  1. By 2008, reduce the number of lowest-performing students in literacy and numeracy in Years three, five, seven by 10 per cent in 2008, with further 20 per cent reduction by 2016.
  2. By 2012, increase the number of students in Years three, five, and seven meeting or exceeding national proficiency benchmarks for literacy and numeracy by 10 per cent with a further 5 per cent increase by 2016.
• Priority S5: More students complete Year 12 or recognised vocational training. The target here is defined as an increase in the proportion of students completing Year 12 or recognised vocational training from 82.7 per cent in 2005 to 90 per cent by 2016.

As with health, the education targets are limited but worthwhile and should have positive impact depending on the exact starting position across New England as compared with final outcomes.

Delivering Better Services - Transport

The first priority area here deals with improved performance on NSW public transport. The discussion and targets (S6) are largely irrelevant to New England although there may be some benefits to Newcastle and the Lower Hunter where public transport is important. I do not have enough specific knowledge here to relate the indicators used to the on-ground position.

The second priority area (S7) focuses on road safety.

Overall, there is little in the transport section that really addresses New England's longer term needs.

Fairness and Opportunity

The Plan states that the Government will overcome cycles of disadvantage through its goals of:

• Strengthening Aboriginal communities through improved health and educational outcomes for Aboriginal people
• Opportunity and support for the most vulnerable through increased employment and community participation for people with disabilities and improved outcomes in mental health
• Early intervention to tackle disadvantage through embedding the principle of prevention and early intervention into Government service delivery in NSW, reduced avoidable hospital admissions, increased proportion of children with skills for life and learning at school entry, and reduced rates of child abuse and neglect.

To improve outcomes for Aboriginal people the Plan (F1) established two key targets:

• Close the gap between Aboriginal and all students in primary school numeracy and literacy rates by 2016
• Over five years, reduce by 15 per cent hospital admissions for Aboriginal people who have conditions that can be appropriately treated in the home.

The Government considers that its existing Two Way program will meet these objectives, so no further action is proposed. Given that New England has a significant Aboriginal population, these are important targets. However, it is not clear to me that they can be achieved in the absence of economic growth to address economic disadvantage.

The second priority area (F2) targets increased employment and community participation for people with disabilities. The set objectives are to:

• close the gap in the unemployment rate between people with a disability and the overall community by 50 per cent by 2016. This is equivalent to around 6,000 jobs
• Increase the out of home participation rate of people with a severe or profound disability to at least 85 per cent.

Again, achievement of these targets in New England depends upon the the availability of jobs and hence on economic development.

The third priority area (F3) targets improved outcomes in mental health. The set objectives are to:

• Reduce re-admissions within 28 days to the same facility
• Increase the percentage of people with a mental illness aged 15-64 who are employed to 34 per cent by 2016
• Increase the community participation rates of people with a mental illness by 40 per cent by 2016.

The Government states that existing plans will achieve these objectives so no further action is required. I lack the knowledge to relate both targets and existing plans to New England's on-ground needs.

The fourth priority area addresses early Intervention to tackle disadvantage. The stated priority (F4) is to embed the principle of prevention and early intervention into Government service delivery in NSW. On the surface, this appears a worthwhile objective.

The fifth priority (F5) aims to reduce avoidable hospital admissions. The target is to reduce by 15 per cent over five years hospital admissions for people who should not need to come to hospital. This is really a health efficiency objective. However, built into it are actions such as enhanced support for carers that are important for New England given our aging population.

The sixth priority (F6) aims to increased the proportion of children with skills for life and learning at school entry. The Plan states that NSW, through the COAG (Council of Australian Governments) process, is working collaboratively to develop a measure of performance and targets. Measurement should begin in 2008. The Government will then set a target for increasing the mean performance of the child population in NSW by 2016.

This area covers a range of existing policies and programs targeting pre-school children. No judgements can be made at this stage as to any new future activities that might arise.

The seventh priority (F7) is to reduce rates of child abuse and neglect. The goal is to reduce the referred reports rate of child abuse over the course of the Plan. The Plan notes that this will be a significant achievement as there is an expected 10 per cent increase in the rate over the next two years alone based on current reporting trends. It is not clear from the Plan how this is to be achieved.

Growing Prosperity across NSW

This is the economic development section of the Plan.

The first priority (P1) is increased business investment. Overall priorities are stated as:

• Maintain and invest in infrastructure to support our growing economy
• Cut red tape
• Increase participation in education and training
• Maintain the State's AAA rating.

Targets are stated as:

• Continue to increase business investment through making NSW a more attractive place to do business
• Increase tourist visitation to NSW by 10 million visitor nights by 2016.

The only new measures proposed are:

• We will develop strategies to focus Government attention on high wage, high skilled, export oriented industries that have the greatest potential to thrive in the future in NSW. The Plan makes it clear that this is to be an innovation, not industry development, strategy.
• We will investigate ways to encourage Australians, particularly NSW residents, to use their accrued leave through short breaks. This would provide a basis for stimulating regional tourism.export oriented industries that have the greatest potential to thrive in the future in NSW

Given that existing policy approaches are not presently delivering the results that New England needs, this area of the Plan offers nothing to New England.

The second priority (P2) is to maintain and invest in infrastructure. The set targets:

• Maintain average annual growth rate in capital expenditure of 4.6 per cent nominal over the next decade (2015-16)
• Develop and report measures of maintenance effectiveness.

Beyond a commitment to consult councils on their needs, this part of the Plan is very much status quo. There is nothing in it that relates specifically to New England's needs other than a passing reference to the Pacific Highway.

The third priority (P3) is to cut red tape. There is nothing in it that relates to New England's key needs.

The fourth priority (P4) aims to get more people participating in education and training throughout their life. The set target is to increase the proportion of the population aged 15-64 participating in vocational education and training from 11.7 per cent in 2005 to 16 per cent by 2016.

In addition to current activities, the Government proposes to consider three new things:

• Increasing Investment in our Training
• Flexible delivery of training
• A Focus on mature workers to increase engagement

While these things may aid NSW as a whole, there is nothing in the Plan relating to New England's specific needs.

The fifth priority (P5) is simply to maintain the State's AAA rating.

The sixth priority (P6) is increased business investment in rural and regional NSW. The target is simply defined as working through Regional Coordination Management Groups (RCMGs) and Regional Development Boards, and with local government and local representative groups to set business growth targets.

The only new approaches under consideration are a possible regional innovation strategy plus some wishy washy words about innovation in primary industry. This part of the Plan does not meet New England's needs.

The seventh priority (P7) is defined as better access to training in rural and regional NSW to support local economies.

At present, VET participation in Regional NSW is well below the Sydney level. The target is to increase to 250,000 (presently 228,000) the number of people in regional areas participating in VET by 2012, with an aim of 300,000 by 2016. The Plan notes that this target can only be achieved through joint effort and funding with the Commonwealth Government and industry.

The only new measure proposed is consideration of improved linkages between training and the needs of local industry. Now it may be that existing measures will allow the target level to be achieved simply through the application of more money. However, on the surface the Plan appears weak in this area.

The Plan also does not address the specific needs of New England including scope for cooperative action across New England's regions.

Environment for Living

The final section of the core Plan addresses environmental and life style issues.

The first priority (E1) is a secure and sustainable water supply for all users. A number of measures are proposed to achieve this.

This priority is driven by the problems that Sydney and certain other parts of NSW have been facing on the water supply side. New England is the wettest part of NSW. The proposed new Hunter dam, for example, is intended to supply water not just to Newcastle but to the central coast. Given this, I simply do not know at this point just what this priority area actually means for New England.

The second priority (E2) is reliable electricity supply with increased use of renewable energy. The targets are defined as:

• Achieve average electricity reliability for NSW of at least 99.98 per cent (presently 99 + per cent) by 2016
• By 2010 10 per cent of electricity consumed in NSW will be from renewable sources (presently 6.1 per cent) rising to 15 per cent by 2020.

No new measures are proposed to achieve renewable targets. There appear to be no particular implications for New England.

The third priority (E3) is cleaner air and progress on greenhouse gas reductions. Cleaner air is very much a Sydney problem, although there have been some issues in Newcastle. Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is a broader policy issue with, on the surface, no specific New England implications.

The fourth priority (E4), better outcomes for native vegetation, biodiversity, land, rivers, and coastal waterways, contains no less than 13 sub targets, most expressed in fairly general terms. This priority is actually both important and very complicated because the Government's habit of imposing standard approaches across the state can lead to strange results given the diversity within NSW.

I lack the specific information to be able to make judgements.

While there are some passing references to areas outside Sydney, the fifth priority (E5), jobs closer to home, is Sydney focused. The target is simply defined as an increase the percentage of the population living within 30 minutes by public transport of a city or major centre in Greater Metropolitan Sydney.

The sixth priority (E6) Housing Affordability is again heavily influenced by Sydney's needs. The targets are expressed as:

In Greater Sydney (Newcastle is included as part of Greater Sydney) Metropolitan Region:

• 640,000 new dwellings over next 25 years to 2031 - of which 445,000 will be in existing urban areas and the remainder (195,000) in greenfield locations
• Achieve 55,000 zoned and serviced lots ready for development by 2009.

In regional areas:

• At least 300,000 new dwellings over the next 25 years, with an increased rate of infill development.

These targets, which imply that population in Sydney will grow at twice the rate of the rest of the state over the next ten years thus further widening the gap between the two, contain very little supporting information.

Over the last ten years, between 20,000 and 30,000 new houses have been built annually in Sydney, so the Sydney target appears to imply a substantial increase in Sydney building. I have no idea what the figure for the rest of the state means.

There is no linkage between the housing target and descriptions of current policies which all appear to focus on housing for the disadvantaged.

Housing affordability and availability varies across New England as do public housing needs. There is no linkage between these varying needs and this priority area.

The seventh priority (E7), improve the efficiency of the road network, deals with Sydney only.

The eighth and final priority (E) focuses on getting more people using parks, sporting and recreational facilities, and participating in the arts and cultural activity. Increase participation in recreation, sporting, artistic and cultural activity. The targets are defined as:

• Increase the number of visits to State Government parks and reserves by 20 per cent by 2016
• Increase the number of people participating in sporting activities and physical exercise by 10 per cent by 2016
• Increase visitation and participation in the arts and cultural activity by 10 per cent by 2016.

This is potentially an important area for New England since it implies more people utilising improved facilities within New England. However, nearly all the examples used are Sydney focused, with only limited new activities that might have some benefit to New England.

Specific Regions

The Plan suggests that specific plans have been developed for individual regions. Looking at the material provided on regions within New England.

No new activities are proposed for the Hunter.

Proposals for the North Coast are:

• Developing a cross-border taskforce with Queensland to examine the need for road, rail and other infrastructure to improve services between the border communities to better manage the impacts and maximise the opportunities for the communities of the Far North Coast of NSW
• Continued investigation of improvements to rail line to maximise the use of freight on rail
• Support vocational education and training by building better links between schools, TAFE and industry to focus on better skilling North Coast young people to address the skills shortages in the region
• Providing a significant increase in public housing in the Tweed area to respond to population growth

Proposals to be considered for the Northern Tablelands/North West are:

• Increasing the supply of people with the skills required by expanding businesses and emerging industries. A Regional Labour Market Taskforce consisting of government agencies, the University of New England and a cross-section of businesses and industries will lead this initiative
• Developing specific strategies to improve the attraction and retention of professional staff, especially in remote rural localities
• Establishing a Land-use Planning Forum to address the regional impacts of climate change (eg shorter growing seasons, water issues). Under this initiative State and Local Government agencies and local producers will work collaboratively to maintain a diverse and productive agricultural sector
• Working in identified small rural towns with government departments, local councils and business to increase the training and employment opportunities for Aboriginal young people.

Conclusion

If you look at my simple analysis of New England's needs in the previous post, and then compare it to the Plan you will see that most of New England's needs are not addressed or addressed in a peripheral fashion.

In this context, one way of testing the potential value of a plan is to ask what the position would be at the end if every target were to be achieved. Here I think that we can say that at the end of ten years New Englanders will be at best marginally better off, more likely they will have seen a further deterioration in New England's position.

NSW Ten Year Plan - New England's needs

Graphic: New England Flag






This morning the NSW Premier announced a new ten year plan for the state. I have therefore put aside the Fossickers Way series to look in a preliminary way at the implications of the plan for New England.

This is the first of two posts. This post focuses on the needs to be met from a New England perspective. The second will look at the plan against those needs.

Background Data

The plan is weak on supporting statistical data. I thought therefore that I should provide a little of this first.

At June 2005 the population of NSW was 6.77 million. If we then look at the population of the main zones in New England we find:

• Hunter Valley 611,000
• North Coast 521,000
• New England North West 179,000

This gives a total New England population of 1,311,000 or 19.4 per cent of the NSW population. New England's share of the total NSW has been in slow decline for a number of years. This decline has especially been concentrated in the inland areas.

If we look at other statistical data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics presents some data in its regional profiles. The New England regions for statistical purposes are Hunter, Mid North Coast, Richmond-Tweed, and Northern. For comparative purposes, we can also look at the Sydney and NSW statistical divisions.

The brief analysis that follows is only broad brush and does not pretend to be definitive. In addition to the ABS material I have also drawn some material from an earlier State of the Regions report.

The data suggests:

• Taking NSW as a whole, between 1998 and 2003 the population of Greater Sydney grew by 256,000, the rest of the State by 105,000. Outside Sydney, the coastal strip dominated population growth, up 7 per cent as compared to 2.7 per cent inland.
• Again taking NSW as a whole, between 1998 and 2003 the workforce of Greater Sydney grew by 205,000, the rest of NSW by just 18,000. In New England, the workforce increased by 0.7 per cent in the Hunter and Mid North Coast, 0.5 per cent in Richmond-Tweed, but actually declined in Northern (Northern Tablelands, North West) by 1.7 per cent. This low workforce growth has created a very real choke point for economic development. In simplest terms, it means that economic growth especially in inland regions will hit capacity constraints very quickly. There are already significant problems in filling skilled vacancies especially in high growth areas.
• Population growth in New England as a whole has been greater than workforce growth. The difference is largely but not completely explained by the movement of retirees into in areas like the Mid North Coast. Northern has been losing young people, Richmond-Tweed and the Mid North Coast lost young but gained working age people and retirees. The Hunter gained young and working age, but experienced proportionately greater gains among seniors. Retention of young people is a key issue for much of New England.
• The New England population is aging and aging faster than the Sydney population. In 1954, the proportion of over 55s ranged from 13 per cent in the Hunter to 15 per cent in other regions. In 2001, the proportion of over 55s ranged from 25 per cent in the Hunter to 30 per cent in the Mid North Coast. In 2021, the range is projected to be from 37 per cent in the Hunter to 47 per cent on the Mid North Coast.
• Using another measure of aging, elderly (over 70) people living alone already constitute more than 6.1 per cent of households in Richmond-Tweed and Mid North Coast, 5.6 to 6.1 in Hunter and Northern. With aging, the proportion of elderly will continue to increase, with (in the absence of change) the highest impact in those areas already aging fastest. This has significant implications for local council operations in terms of the rate base (down) and the required scale of council support operations (up). Population aging is probably the greatest single public policy challenge facing New England over the next twenty years.
• Average incomes in New England are lower than in Sydney, in part because of the higher number of retired people, in part because Sydney simply has higher proportion of higher paying jobs in industry, the professions and Government. Thus in 2003 the Sydney average annual taxable income was $46,834 as compare to $39,861 in Hunter, $35,115 in Northern, $33,285 in Mid North Coast and $32,981 in Richmond-Tweed.
• Unemployment has been higher in New England than in Sydney, especially along the coastal strip, while the number of people on various income support programs is also much higher. In 2003 for example, that latest year for which figures are available, there were 174,648 people in the North Coast on some form of income support as compared to a total 2005 population of 521,000.

Other Issues

In addition to these broad patterns, there are also a number of other important issues. These include:

• Cross-border issues. In the south Newcastle is being drawn into Greater Sydney and is now being treated as a satellite of Sydney for planning purposes. In the north, the Richmond and especially the Tweed Valley face significant cross-border issues with Queensland. There are also lower scale integration issues elsewhere along the New England-Queensland border.
• Water. While parts of New England are presently badly affected by drought, New England is also the wettest part of NSW. Control over water is likely to become an increasingly important issue.
• Tourism. There is presently no integrated approach to selling New England as a tourism destination. This is especially a problem for inland areas lacking major tourism centres.
• Skilled labour shortages. Already mentioned in passing. Parts of New England are suffering significant shortages in skilled labour, shortages that are impeding development. Critical issues include extending skills training in New England combined with some program to attract skills to New England.
• Coastal planning and conflict. Increased population and tourism numbers along the North Coast are creating conflict.
• Higher Education. In higher education, New England's universities, especially New England and Southern Cross, face challenges in gaining student numbers because of the impact of demographic change combined with growing external competition. There is a real need to look at better cooperation among New England universities, at methods to sell those universities to students, at measures of integration so that the sector as a whole provides a complete portfolio of offerings.
• Schools. Issues associated with New England schooling are complex because of the extent of variation across New England. The public-private divide is creating an increasing problem. Much could be done to improve the current position if cooperation between schools was facilitated, if schools and other community facilities were better integrated, if the New England school system as a whole were better promoted.
• East-west linkages. The need to improve internal road communication within New England remains. Key priorities include the Kempsey-Armidale and Grafton- Armidale roads. There would also be real gains if the two main links between Scone and Nundle were improved to provide alternative tourist routes to the New England Highway.
• Indigenous development. New England has a major Aboriginal population, in some cases much higher than the NSW average. This group faces very significant problems. We need to address the opportunities offered by our significant Aboriginal heritage as well as the problems.
• Health. Particular parts of New England suffer problems in accessing adequate medical and dental services.
• New England integration. The segmentation of New England into Government defined regions centred on Sydney continues to create problems for cross region cooperation within New England. In the absence of self-government, the NSW Government needs to provide and encourage measures that will facilitate integration.

Local Views

The plan itself provides some remarkably skimpy information on regional views within New England as collected during the consultation process.

Hunter needs were identified as:

Attracting new employment opportunities to the area was seen as a key challenge, particularly for youth; and preferably employment that diversifies the economic base beyond coal and power industries. The need to address skills shortages to enable local people to get local jobs was also stressed.

Other feedback highlighted the need to ensure access and provision to health services, better access to public transport with improved road maintenance and construction. The ongoing impact of drought in rural and remote areas may require a review of water management and it is important to ensure planning for the region achieves a balance between social, economic and environmental objectives.

North Coast needs were identified as:

One of the biggest challenges for the North Coast region as identified by the community is to provide education and employment options, especially for young people. In addition, continued population growth, urban expansion and the ageing of the population is creating demand for new social and physical infrastructure, including the need for better transport, water and sewerage, health, housing and education infrastructure. The continued upgrading of the Pacific Highway is of particular importance to the region. Balancing the demand of development with the protection of the coastal environment also remains a key concern.

The community welcomed the Government's commitment to the upgrading of hospitals, in particular the buyback of the Port Macquarie Base Hospital and the provision of the new facility in Coffs Harbour is seen as very positive. The rapid pace of growth in the region has seen poverty increase for many groups, particularly for Aboriginal communities and the community noted the need for more support services for families and disadvantaged groups generally.

Northern needs were identified as:

In particular, the growth of the mining industry brings with it increasing pressure to develop and maintain a physical infrastructure (roads, rail, telecommunications, transport) with capacity to support it. Balanced and sustainable management of our natural resources to protect the existing agricultural base while benefiting from a rich mineral base will be vital.
Attracting and retaining a skilled work force for the services required to support not just industry growth, but growing populations, will be vital.

Communities were also very clear in their determination to build strong and supportive families and communities, and to reduce the rates of child and substance abuse.

The community identified public education and health and aged care services as key strengths with recognition that we could improve the range of career focused opportunities on offer.

Key Priorities

This brief analysis provides some bench marks against which to judge the NSW Government Ten Year Plan. For example:

• Economic development. Economic development is the single most important New England priority. Inland we need it to redress population decline. On the coast including the Hunter, we need it to better balance the aging population, to reduce unemployment and welfare dependence, to provide greater opportunities for our young people. Many other priorities follow from this.
• People attraction. New England does not need more retirees. Our core people priority is to attract skilled labour to fill current vacancies, to lay a basis for future growth.
• Industry development. We need programs at two levels. Internally, we need policies and programs that will facilitate business development based on what we already have. Externally, we need policies and programs that will facilitate the attraction of new investment and business activity to New England.
• Tourism development. Tourism is already important for New England. Our problem lies in attracting people in competition with other parts of Australia and especially Sydney. We need to build both the average length of stay and the average spend. We also need to encourage New Englanders to take better advantage themselves of offerings within New England.
• Education and training: We need programs that will widen educational opportunities, encourage more young people to continue their education, integrate educational offerings at all levels so that New England provides a total portfolio of offerings, build local skills development, sell New England educational opportunities to a broader marketplace.
• Aging. Given that we already know that we face a major challenge in this area based on the current demographic profile, a challenge that is going to require a range of support facilities including associated professionals, we need a plan that scopes the problem and identifies what can and should be done in response.
• Heath. Health is more complex in that some parts of New England have access to good facilities, others do not. We also need to plan for future health needs. We need a plan that takes this varied pattern of needs into account.
• Indigenous development. How will the plan help us meet the needs of our Aboriginal community while also taking advantage of the opportunities they offer.
• Integration. Will the plan assist the different regions within New England to cooperate with each other, to integrate activities for mutual benefit?

A Civil Aviation Policy for New England

In my last post I spoke of New England's civil aviation woes.

Anybody who has read this blog will know my complaint that the absence of a formal structure for New England - essentially statehood - prevents New England's problems being dealt with in a coordinated fashion.

In my previous posts on New England and the NSW Government's Ten Year Plan (here 1, here 2, here 3) I suggested that the Plan failed in part because it did not address New England's needs in an integrated fashion and that indeed it could not because of the way Government was structured.

Similar issues arise in civil aviation, an issue that was not addressed in the Plan.

Under the Australian constitution, the states have responsibility for intra-state aviation. In theory, they can regulate this to their heart's content. In practice they face a number of problems:

1. A significant proportion of civil aviation is interstate. Indeed, over 99 per cent of New England's scheduled services ate interstate in that they go beyond New England's boundaries.
2. The rules laid down under National Competition Policy impede what any state can do.
3. Aviation industry structure is now largely national. The days of major carriers focused on particular states or areas within a state are largely gone.

These limitations do not mean that a state Government cannot do something. Consider the following:

1. At present, the majority of New England's international air traffic goes in and out through Sydney, to a lesser extent through Brisbane. In the 1990s Coffs Harbour attempted to establish limited international flights to New Zealand. Whether New England should attempt to build direct international flights is uncertain, but the issue of international travel at least needs to be addressed in the context of a New England tourism strategy.
2. At present, many New England air travellers have to use Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney as a hub. Again in the 1990s, Impulse tried to build Newcastle as a hub before becoming distracted by its broader ambitions. Should New England consider the development of New England hubbing activities? Or the development of rival hubs outside New England?
3. Parts of New England have very poor air connections with Brisbane. Growth in South East Queensland makes Brisbane a rival for Sydney for many services. What can be done to improve air connections with Brisbane?
4. More broadly, many parts of New England have poor air services to begin with. There are also very limited internal connections. In fact, both areas are worse today than they were thirty years ago. What might be done to improve the situation?

In considering these questions I think that it is important to remember that Sydney and New England are in fundamental if presently unequal economic competition. New England wants to attract people and investment that would otherwise go to Sydney.

Sydney has a Government to look after it. You only have to look at the Sydney weighting in the NSW Ten Year Plan to see this. New England does not. In these circumstances, it is up to New Englanders to try to articulate a different and coordinated view about New England's needs.

New England New State Movement - consolidated posts linked to the fight for New England self government

Graphic: New England New State Movement Anthem, National Library

We will raise the banner of New England
Work for New England,
Fight for New England
We will raise the battle cry of freedom
Fight for our Liberty
Part of the New England Anthem

Way up in the north of Northern NSW
There is a new state movement that's sort of on the go
But what will be the capital of this new state of ours?
That is the burning question that's being worrying them for hours
Will it be in Armidale, Tamworth or Bendameer?
Or will it be in Grafton the place where they make beer?
Song, University of New England Student Review, 1960s

I was browsing Wikedpia and I found a talk section on the New England New State Movement. I also found two of my blogs including this one listed as not suitable for citation but as a useful entry point for source material.

I added some information, and then thought that my own writing on the New England New State Movement is all over the place in terms of blogs and post topics. I have been meaning to put up a Wikipedia page on the movement, there is not one at present, but it would sensible to do something about consolidating my own stuff first.

My own biases on this matter will be clear. I was a member of the Movement and was in fact on the Executive for a period representing the University of New England New State Society. I remain a strong supporter of New England self government.

Since the Movement went into decline following the defeat at the 1967 plebiscite, its history and indeed that of New England itself has become lost. I believe that's a pity.

This post is intended to provide a consolidated entry point for my posts on the New England New State Movement. It is broken into two parts. The first simply provides a short overview of New England and the Movement. The second is an annotated list of posts broken up by topic.

I hope that the post is of some use to those interested in the topic. I will try to update from time to time.

The Snapshot

Name: New England was initially called Northern NSW, the North, the Northern Districts or the Northern Provinces. The name New England was originally the name of the Tableland area forming New England's core. The Tablelands are known as the Northern Tablelands, the New New England Tablelands or sometimes just the New England to distnguish them from the broader New England area.

The name New England was adopted for the whole area by the Northern Separation Movement at its 1931 Maitland convention. From there its usage spread, contracting again as the New State Movement went into decline after 1967.

Area: Because New England has never had a formal identity, its boundaries have varied with time. In broad terms, it covers the humid coastal strip from the Hunter Valley to the Queensland border, the New England Tablelands and the immediately adjoining Western slopes and Plains.

In economic and geographic terms, New England forms a natural unit that has survived to the present day. The modern TV aggregation boundaries, as an example, reflect the New England core.

In political terms,the boundaries have varied. The initial separation discussions excluded the Hunter, in part because of tensions between the industrial and mining heartland of the lower Hunter and the rest of the area. The problem with this is that Newcastle and the Hunter are a logical part of New England. The boundaries recommended by the 1935 report of the Nicholas Royal Commission into areas of NSW suitable for self-government included Newcastle and the Hunter. These boundaries were adopted by the New England New State Movement and used as the basis for the 1967 self-government referendum.

New State Agitation. The first separatist agitation occurred during colonial times at the the time of the separation of Queensland from NSW. While this was followed by outbreaks of agitation,these remained sporadic.

This changed in the twentieth century. Agitation began again at Grafton ltowards the end of the First World War led by Earle Page, a local doctor and later a prominent Australian politician. This was picked up a little later by Victor Thompson, editor of the Tamworth Northern Daily Leader who launched a sustained newspaper campaign that involved papers as far south as Cessnock in the lower Hunter. This led to the creation of a formal movement. One outcome was the 1924 Cohen Royal Commission into New States.

The Cohen Commission ruled against to the movement and it went into decline, resurging at the start of the depression. This forced another Royal Commission, the Nicholas Commission. While this recommended in favour, the movement was again in decline as economic conditions improved.

Agitation started again at the end of the Second World War and this time was sustained by permanent staff. In 1961 the movement launched Operation Seventh State, raising over 100,000 pounds. This allowed more staff and greater agitation, culminating in the 1967 referendum.

The no vote was led by the Labor Party who campaigned hard. The very high no vote in the Labor strongholds of Newcastle and the Lower Hunter offset the majority yes vote elsewhere, although the no margin was not high. Exhausted, the movement collapsed.

The Posts

Because of the importance of the topic to me, material about the separation movements and the New England self government cause can be found in many posts. I have tried to select posts that will give the interested reader an entry point. Uou will find the material somewhat fragmented. Looking at the posts reminded me just how many unfinished series and indeed incomplete posts I have.

Geography

New England's geography is central to its story because it both divided and provided a natural unity.

• Geography of New England - Introduction
• On Travel Time and Our Sense of Space. This post explores the relationship between travel modes and our perception of the world, taking New England in 1907 as a key example.
• Geography of New England - Impact of Great Dividing Range
• New England & Queensland - a truncated relationship
• Early European Settlement in New England. Geography, settlement and the formation of long-standing patterns.
• New England & Queensland - a further note

The Changing Definition of New England

As indicated in the introduction to this post, both the names used to describe New England and the meaning attached to New England itself has varied with time.

• New England's Boundaries
• The Changing Meaning of New England

Introduction to the History of New England

The history of Northern NSW has yet to be written, with the area squeezed between the state or national level on one side, the narrow regional or local on the other.

• New England Timelines
• Towards a Course on the History of New England - Introduction
• Towards a Course on the History of New England- The Colonial Period. Includes discussion of the influence of geography
• The Economic Basis of Traditional Aboriginal Life in New England. Part completed post, including discussion on geography.
• History of New England: the impact of transport costs. Fights for better transport form one of the enduring themes in New England's history. Drawing from Geoffrey Blainey, this post looks at the economics of transport.
• New England Australia - Railways Introduction also looks at the influence of transport, this time focused on railways.

Politics - historical

During the colonial period, New England politics was dominated by the Sydney based factional political system, with particular local manifestations. The emergence of the party political system saw the new Labor Party and the Progressive/Country Party compete for influence. Labor influence was strongest in Newcastle and the mining areas of the Lower Hunter, the Country Party came to dominate elsewhere. New England interests dominated the NSW Country Party.

In addition to the political parties, the separation movement exercised varying degrees of influence. There were close links between the separation movement and the Country Party in terms of leadership and aspirations, especially in the period between the wars. This added to Labor's opposition to separation.

Today the National Party (the name the Country Party came to take) is in serious decline in its previous New England heartland, in part because of the rise of the New England independents who better represent continuing local differences.

• The past is always present. A note on the Labor Party.
• The past is always present - the Country Party
• The past is always present: the Country Party continued
• Country Party - annotated bibliography

Separation Movements - history

From sporadic outbreaks in colonial times, the various separation movements came to represent a unique and powerful element in New England's history, creating common views across sectional and parochial interests.

• New England's Boundaries. Includes brief note on the colonial period.
• References Colonial Period New England New State Movement
• New England New State Movement - Reference Sources
• The New England New State Movement and Regional Movements in Australia 1

Current Politics

I have selected a few posts on current politics that contain information linking present and past.

• New England, Australia - State Electorates
• NSW Ten Year Plan - New England's needs
• Does the NSW Ten Year Plan meet New England's needs?
• NSW Ten Year Plan and New England - Conclusions
• NSW Elections 2007 - final Legislative Assembly results
• New England's Federal Electorates - Welcome Visitor 8,000
• New England Australia - Newcastle's decline
• Australia's Water Wars - Introduction
• The Clarence River and the Great Big Water Grab 2 - the issues
• New England Australia Demography - Stocktake of posts as at 28 September 2007
• Regional Variation and Australia's Aborigines
• Why I remain a New England New Stater 1 - Introduction. This is a series of short posts taking examples to show why I remain a new stater.
• Teasing Neil - but with a serious point compares the Sydney and New England Federal electorates.
• New England's Federal Electorates - Cowper
• New England - Federal Election Eve 2007: and the next day

New England Thought

New England developed its own forms of thinking conditioned by its geography and history.

• Sunday Essay - The beliefs of a New England populist
• Saturday Morning Musings - literature, locale and license
• Populism - the New England Tradition: Introduction
• Kansas, Thomas Frank, New England, Jim Belshaw
• Constitutional Change in Australia - the view from 1926: Introduction. This is the first post in a series taking the writings of David Drummond, the New England Movement's main constitutional writer, as a base.
• Constitutional Change in Australia - the view from 1926: Three streams of constitutional thought
• Constitutional Change in Australia - the view from 1926: Constitutional principles
• Water, new states and the intellectual poverty of current Australian discussions on Federalism

To be continued

2006 - The Year Ends in New England, Australia

As we come to year's end, I looked back over the 95 posts made since I started this blog back in April.

Photo: Gordon Smith, New England Ranges.

Initial posts over April, May, June and July focused on New England's geography and history, including the meaning of "New England" and the impact of geography on human settlement. You can get a feel from Gordon's photo as to the difficulties that the rugged ranges and especially the eastern escarpment created for transport and communications. I was very much feeling my way.

Photo: Hunter Valley Vineyards.

In August I opened a new front with an initial set of stories on the history of New England's wine regions starting with the Hunter Valley, Australia's oldest major wine region. Reading Patrice's Newell's book, The River, followed by Alex Buzo's death started me thinking and writing about some of New England's writers.

Photo: Passengers New England Airways, New England's first major airline. Hood Collection.

While the culture and life style theme continued in September, the main historical focus shifted to transport and especially civil aviation (post summary here).I began the story of civil aviation in New England, starting with the formation of Lismore based New England Airways, one of Australia's first major airlines and one that has always fascinated me.

Photo: Inverell Saphire City Festival crowd scene.

In October the life style theme continued with an initial series of post on New England's festivals, one of the on-going features of New England life. Historical posts continued the transport focus, while consolidating some earlier historical material.

Graphic. New England Flag.

In November life style and historical reporting continued, but the blog added a further focus, current political events. The NSW Government released its new ten year plan. I analysed this over a series of posts starting with a review of New England's needs followed by an examination of the plan against those needs. I concluded that the plan did not meet New England's needs.

New England's current aviation woes continued in November when Big Sky Express was forced to suspend services to Gunnedah, Inverell, Taree and Grafton. This followed Sunshine Express's withdrawal from scheduled services in September, leaving some New England centres without Brisbane air connections. Following on from the earlier planning material, this led me to argue that New England needed its own civil aviation policy if we were to have any chance of addressing our civil aviation problems.

Photo: Fire at Night.

In December the bush fires that had burnt from October into December in various parts of New England, burning out more than 200,000 hectares, began to die down, leaving dispute about the causes. Tamworth Council's decision to reject a refugee resettlement centre became a major international news story. I complained about Newcastle as an information back hole, making reporting difficult. In addition to political reporting, life style and historical reporting continued, including the start of a new series on the Macleay Valley.

Photo : Gordon Smith Armidale after the hail.

Just to remind us all of weather extremes, towards the end of December. Armidale was hit by a freak hail storm.

How Can New England Attract Attention?

I am just back from my youngest daughter's annual break-up. It's late and I should go to bed. But I wanted to report on a conversation.

After the break-up we went out for a drink with another couple and their daughter to celebrate. The father is a well known Sydney journalist.

I was trying to explain about this blog because I thought that the broader stories that I was running might be of interest to a Sydney audience. His reaction was negative.

Since I started this blog I have written some 85 stories on different aspects of New England's history and life. This includes some quite detailed analytical pieces as well as the lighter human interest material.

I know that I find all this interesting, I would not be writing otherwise, and it is clear from the traffic stats that at least some others do as well. So why, then, is the material not of interest from the perspective of a metro journalist, especially one who sometimes writes about the same type of subject?

The answer I come back to links to one of my constant themes, the way the broader New State New England has vanished from public consciousness. The way New England is now divided into disconnected regions - the Hunter, Mid North coast etc - means that those areas are to small too attract regular attention in their own right. The broader issues simply get lost in the static.

Does this matter? I think that it does.

Take the stories I wrote on the NSW Government's Ten Year Plan as an example. Here I started by trying to define some of New England's needs as I saw them. I followed this up by looking at the Plan in detail against those needs. Then in my third post in the series I set out my conclusions, concluding in particular that the Plan did not meet New England's needs.

Now my analysis may be wrong, but I still think that my conclusion is an important one.

My two posts (here1 and here 2) on civil aviation in New England provide a second example.

The fact that Armidale lost its Brisbane air service may not be important in the scheme of things. However, the fact that the air services to Glen Innes, Inverell, Gunnedah, Armidale, Tamworth, Grafton, Port Macquarie and Taree were all affected by a series of interconnected events is, or so I think, of a different order of magnitude. Certainly if I were Premier of New England I would be seriously worried about it.

So what, then, can New England do to attract attention?

This blog is an obvious first step in that I am trying to use my skills as a policy analyst (among other things, I spent twenty years in the Commonwealth Public Service including eight years as a senior public servant) to define and present the New England case. But in doing so I am becoming impatient in that I want to achieve greater impact.

The issue in my mind is how. I think here that I probably need to start promoting the blog more broadly, trying to encourage people to take up and promote the ideas and the New England cause so that they do become issues in the lead up to the next state election.

In doing so, I do not want to adopt a Party political position. My traditional Country Party affiliations are well known. But from a New England perspective it does not matter whether the ALP, Nationals, Liberals or independents take the main pro-England stance. The critical requirement is that at least some do, thus forcing others to respond.

Sydney Government releases draft Mid North Coast strategy

Photo: South West Rocks, tourist destination, Mid North Coast

The Sydney Government has released its 25 year strategy for the Mid North Coast. The Sydney Morning Herald story on the strategy can be found here, the strategy itself here.

In a series of earlier posts dealing with the Government's ten year plan (here 1, here 2, here 3) I set out the needs that the Plan needed to meet, concluding that it did not meet those needs. On the surface, and I still have to do the detailed analysis, this strategy suffers from similar weaknesses.

The strategy postulates that the population of the Mid North Coast will rise by 91,000 new residents to be accommodated in 58,400 new dwellings. Lack of jobs is already a core problem on the Mid North Coast. So you would expect that job creation would be a key element in the strategy. It is not.

The strategy assumes that a certain proportion of jobs will come from extra employment required to service the increased population. That leaves a significant gap that the strategy does not address in any way other than some comments on the need to increase industrial land. Hardly a solution.

Another gripe. When did Grafton become part of the Mid North Coast? It is and always has been part of the Northern Rivers. I do wish that the Sydney Government would stop fiddling with regional boundaries for its own administrative convenience.

New England Australia - what brings people to this site

I have been reviewing visitor patterns to see what brings people to this site.

Of the last ten hits, one was a direct hit, one a referral from the New England History blog, eight came in through search engines.

The first search on Google Australia but whole web was on nsw election 2007. The story I did on the New England results came up on the first page and drew the visitor. The search also picked up two broader posts I did on Personal Reflections , so three of the top ten items picked up by Google were in fact written by me.

I write from a personal perspective, but I also try to give both links and data, so I hope that the visitor found the material of some use.

The next search, again on Google Australia and whole web, was on "G A Robinson" Lismore. I have mentioned Mr Robinson a number of times in the context of the foundation of New England Airways (list of posts here), so these posts came up in the first ten hits.

I had not done this exact search myself before, so picked up a few more references myself. One was a short factual note on oldbeacon, a second a passing reference in John Gunn's book on Amazon.

The third search on Google was buzo, alex. This picked up, again in the first ten references, the story I wrote about his death. I have noticed over time a steady interest in Alex. The story on him on Wikipedia is very short. I hope that someone with more literary knowledge than I have will extend it at some point.

There were two searches, different IPs, on Google Australia but whole web on Slim Dusty. Both picked up the story on the Slim Dusty Centre project in Kempsey.

Interestingly, the first search on slim dusty history brought the story in among the first ten. In the second on just slim dusty the story came in at number 43, so my visitor had to go through a few pages to find it.

History birpai tribe on Google Australia whole web brought this blog up in the first ten. I am sure that whoever was searching was disappointed because I have only one passing reference. I can do something about this.

A ninemsn search on the university of new england's centre for local government brought this blog up number one. A totally undeserved result brought about by the way the search engine robots combine words.

Finally, a Google search on towns in new england nsw captured the story I wrote on New England's poor towns at number 3.

This result made me a bit uncomfortable. That story was sparked by Professor Vinson's study of disadvantage and addressed a failure in public policy. I would not want the post to be seen as a total story of all New England towns.

I have written about a fair number of places. I wonder how I can make this more accessible?

A few late additions

I had just finished this post when a few new hits appeared.

Still on the weird and wonderful was the search on Google on number of children per Morman family 2007. I have one reference in one post to the Morman Church, the story on my year five class at the Armidale Demonstration School that somehow bringing the site up in the first ten.

Next came a search on ninemsn on stats youth crime in cessnock nsw australia. I think from the words on the search page that my post on the NSW State Plan was the trigger here, but when I followed the msnsearch link back it bought up a number of posts in a series, some form of consolidation brought about by the msn search robots.

Then there was the search on king family at bingara. Here my story on the death of David Armstrong who was born in Bingara and was known as the king came up as the second item. I hope that my visitor found the story of some interest, although it had nothing to do with the King family as such.

I am always interested in New England families, so followed some of the links myself.

The first click led me to Message Stick on the National Indigenous Times (19 April 07) focused on finding missing relatives. Nothing on the King family, but interesting.

Then a click took me to the Peerage.com, a genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe. This is a somewhat eccentric but interesting site maintained by Daryyl Lundy in New Zealand.

Here I learned that D'hrie King, the daughter of Frank R King of Bingara, married Sir William Windsor Broun of Colstoun, 13th Bt. Here I found a list of people with some connection to the peerage grouped by NSW town or suburb. The list is not complete, the Crofts are not on it as a New England example, but it is still an interesting byway.

Another link led me to Joyce and Neville Bryant's home page.

While they now live in Stanthorpe just over the New England border in Queensland, Joyce was born in Glen Innes and then boraded in Armidale to complete her secondary education at the Armidale High School in the early 1950s. The site includes some interesting material on the Hartman family of Glen Innes.

Yet another link led me to Aussie Rhonda's Geneology site. This is a very good site with a strong focus on the western New England Tablelands and slopes. It includes a useful page of resources. Saddly, when I went to leave a message in the guest book I found that this section of the site had been closed because of, you guessed it, the impact of spammers.