In this Centenary of Federation year, we are told that we should be giving serious thought to what we envisage for the future of Australia. What person in their right mind would put their hand up for even bigger capital cities than we have at present? Yet at both Commonwealth and State levels of government there is no evidence that the continuing growth of the big cities is of the slightest concern. In fact, it is actively encouraged and financially supported by them.
We are told that the flow from country to city is a worldwide trend but that does not mean that it should happen in Australia. No other country has the wide-open spaces and regional areas that can support much larger populations. Most other countries are overcrowded and there is no real alternative. As farms become more mechanised, as they must if the burgeoning population of the planet is to be fed, fewer people are producing greatly increased quantities of agricultural products.
It is the direct result of our governments policies that more and more people are crowding into the capital cities at the cost of the small towns and cities in regional Australia. Most of these towns and cities could double or treble their population at very little additional cost for infrastructure.
There is no doubt that there are economies of scale in providing services such as roads, water supplies, drainage and power, in cities where there is scarcely a block of land without a house, shop or factory on it. This used to be recognised by governments through the subsidisation of water and sewerage services in country towns and schemes to encourage the extension of electric power.
A couple of decades ago, there was a dramatic change in the attitude of governments around the world to issues of world trade. Some of these schemes were seen as devises for propping up inefficient industries. The Victorian government therefor removed the subsidies for water and sewerage services and, instead, now requires these authorities to pay an annual dividend to the State government. This has resulted in huge increases in the cost of water and sewerage in country towns. Economic rationalisation has been used as the excuse to remove sensible counter measures to massive government spending in the city.
City politicians see any attempt to support regional and rural industries as a handout for the bush but in an industry like the power industry there has to be an element of cross subsidisation. Many factors affect the cost of supplying electricity. It costs more to transmit electricity over long distances, for example. Apparently it is acceptable for consumers in large towns to subsidise these costs for remote areas, but not for city consumers to do so.
Governments, however, refuse to explain, or even acknowledge, why public transport in metropolitan Melbourne is immune from economic rationalisation and continues to be subsidised by well over $1 billion every year. This gives the capital city a huge advantage over regional and rural areas in attracting or even retaining industries, or businesses to keep people in the country. It puts agriculture at a disadvantage in competing with other countries, even on our own markets. Unless other capital cities are doing the same, it is giving Melbourne an unfair competitive advantage over them also.
The Commonwealth government is vocal in its criticism of unfair trading practises in other countries but turns a blind eye to unfair competition imposed by government in this country. There is no moral or economic justification for the State government to provide public transport for Melbourne people at probably less than half of its cost. For example, Auckland regional public transport system receives about $20 million annual subsidy from the New Zealand government so New Zealanders do not subsidise the infrastructure costs of their major city to anything like the same extent as Victorians do. With roughly a similar population, Victoria contributes 50 times that amount to public transport in Melbourne.
Australia is not just six cities with vast tracts of wasteland in between inhabited by tiresome people as our governments, and mass media, seem to believe.