Growing population, growing demand for food, climate change: Australia’s rural lands are facing a number of pressures. So how can we sustainably use them in the future?
Rural and regional Australians deserve more than tokenistic media coverage of their regions.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
Before media reform becomes a runaway train, we need to return to the drawing board and rethink the maps that define and guide broadcasters on reporting news for “local areas”.
Graduates of a 2015 Tertiary Entry Program, which paves the way into university courses, with lead author and CQUniversity’s Pro Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Engagement, Bronwyn Fredericks (fourth from left) and Provost Hilary Winchester (far right).
Peter Lawrence/CQUniNewsPICs
If we’re serious about closing the gap in Indigenous education, our new research shows the value of building better bridges into universities and vocational education.
Current policies aren’t working – it’s time to open the door to other suggestions.
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Current incentives used to recruit more teachers to work in rural and regional schools aren’t working. But could the health sector offer up some possible solutions?
Regional women strike outdated attitudes as they try to progress their careers.
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“Too emotional”. “Lack talent”. “Can’t manage a career and family”. It sounds like a episode of Mad Men, but that’s what regional women hear every day at work.
To write off towns outside of Sydney and Melbourne as being bereft of culture is an arrogant falsehood.
Briony Osei, Eve Beck and Jack Griffiths in The Bacchae. Photo taken by T J Lee
The term “regional arts” carries certain baggage that can create, and uphold, a divisive opposition between city and country. But there is plenty happening in regional Australia, and much to potentially lose.
Remote households trying to telecommute rely on satellite connections to high-speed broadband – which sometimes don’t work.
AnnieAnniePancake/Flickr
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull reiterated the importance of the National Broadband Network (NBN) for regional and rural Australia in an address to the NBN Rebooted conference in Sydney last week…
Apollo Bay in Victoria. Australia’s coastal towns are vulnerable to changes in the surrounding seas.
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Australia’s coastal towns, many built around fisheries and tourism, are particularly vulnerable to climate change. South east and south west Australia are marine hotspots — they are warming much faster…
Warragamba Dam, supplying drinking water to over four million residents of Sydney.
Summer is coming and, with it, dry conditions for many parts of Australia. While it may be difficult to imagine for city dwellers, parts of regional Australia will likely face severe water shortages over…
Refugees may find a welcome in rural and regional Australia if resettlement helps ease labour and skill shortages.
AAP
Accompanying the reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) in Australia last week was a new type of immigration visa, the Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (SHEV). What is significant about the SHEV…
Regional tours such as Opera Australia’s cross-country circuit with The Magic Flute deliver real benefits to the communities they visit.
Albert Comper, Opera Australia
Since July, Mozart’s popular opera, The Magic Flute, has been touring regional Australia. The Opera Australia production, a version of Mozart’s classic reinvented by Australian playwright Michael Gow and…
Australia Post: more than letters.
Alison Curtis/Flickr
In the near future a trip to the Post Office in regional and remote Australia may mean picking up a parcel or a letter. It could also mean a virtual meeting with your tertiary education provider, a virtual…
Rural and regional newspapers are training grounds for young journalists – and they tell the stories that really affect local communities.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
I remember the day I started work at what was then The Imlay Magnet in Eden. It was 1991 and I had taken the job straight out of my journalism degree at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (now…
The government reacted swiftly last week to help Queensland flood victims, but the focus on “replacement” may have deleterious economic consequences for regional communities.
AAP
With predictions for more frequent and severe natural disasters in the future, it is imperative that we look further than the replacement of our physical infrastructure when rebuilding regional communities…
There are plenty of misunderstandings about what regional universities do, but they can play a big part in shaping Australia’s future in the knowledge economy.
Flickr/WilLiao
Most urban Australians don’t tend to think about regional Australia, and when they do it’s often hazy notions of a place blighted by natural disasters, economic gloom and declining population. But for…
Mining is a major regional activity - yet as we ready ourselves for the Asian century, very little research has been undertaken on other growth opportunities in these areas.
A stocktake of research conducted into regional development in Australia shows that we are failing to do sufficient research on opportunities for sustainable growth and prosperity in regional Australia…
Seatbelts have long been mandatory in cars, so why are there still school buses without them?
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The NSW School Bus Safety Community Advisory Committee made a major recommendation in its report released this week that seatbelts should be installed on all rural school buses that operate outside lower-speed…
Winter in many Australian country towns is accompanied by a pall of smoke from wood-fired heaters that lasts from late afternoon to the following morning. In larger towns and cities burning wood has been…
Australia’s regional migration scheme has had encouraging outcomes.
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Since 1995, there has been a concerted government policy push encouraging new migrants to settle away from the major cities. The Federal Government has ramped this up further, announcing in the 2011 Federal…