ALBURY-Wodonga is being used by the federal government as an example of why business and not bureaucrats should decide the boom towns in regional Australia.
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Sustainable Population Minister Tony Burke has told a national daily he would not follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and get people out of the cities and into the country by shifting public service departments.
He said this policy — used by many past state and federal governments in places such as Albury-Wodonga — had failed in getting people to move over the long term, and it was better to let the market decide which regional areas should boom.
But Albury-based member for Farrer Sussan Ley said it didn’t sound like the minister has much of a plan at all.
“Or if there is a plan, the idea of an ‘Albury-Wodonga’ doesn’t fit inside the Gillard Government’s one-size-fits-all policy flops,” she said.
“They will spend billions of taxpayer dollars on school halls, pink batts, solar panels, old cars and the NBN but not on practical ways which actually might assist regional population growth.
“I do agree on one point, developing regional Australia isn’t about picking winners.
“But it is about open consultation, then strategically working with individual regions to cultivate their long term survival.”
In 1973 then prime minister Gough Whitlam unveiled plans for an Albury-Wodonga National Growth Centre, targeting a combined population of 300,000.
The figure was later halved by the Fraser government and ultimately scrapped in 1989.
Last year Albury Council backed a NSW Local Government Association conference motion pushing for the decentralisation of large industry and businesses from Sydney and Melbourne.
But Mr Burke is quoted as saying a national population strategy, due to be released mid-year, would address “barriers” to people living in booming regional areas where there are housing shortages.
The minister’s office failed to return The Border Mail’s calls yesterday.