A field of dreams

In almost every conversation I have about moving to the regions, the first response is ‘there’s no jobs in the country’. And this is often from people who should know better.

So Regional Australia Institute’s latest research paper, titled The Big Skills Challenge, is a welcome contribution to busting this annoyingly persistent myth.

The research paper shows in March this year there were 93,000 advertised jobs in regional Australia. And, as all regional employers know, there will be at least this number again that are not advertised.

For many of us, word of mouth or using our various networks, is a more effective way of attracting the right talent.

Another important observation is the shift in the types of jobs available.

Whereas once there would have been a focus on semi-skilled jobs in agriculture and industry, these types of jobs only make up 9.5 percent of advertised roles.

Professional roles in areas such as medical practice, nursing, education and business make up 26.7 percent of advertisements. Skilled trades in automotive, engineering, construction, hairdressing, information technology and telecommunications sectors make up a further 15.1 percent.

We need to be shouting this from the top of our painted silos. There are many great jobs here, for you and your partner.

What bothers me most is finding a way to be heard.

At a high level, RAI’s work is fantastic and they do have the ear of government. I’m hopeful we’ll see greater attention from federal and state governments toward regional policy development.

But we’re in an environment where there is a chronic skills shortage in the capital cities as well. How do small towns in western Victoria get any attention when this is a national problem?

Contemplating the answer to this question leads to the next question. What are our strengths?

At Rupanyup, we have been asking ourselves this question for a few years now.

Through the Rural Migration Initiative we soon identified a lack of housing as the key blocker to attracting people back to the region.

But we should be able to flip this. We should be able to make access to affordable housing our strength. We have relatively cheap and available land, and in many places we have surplus public infrastructure – schools, roads and sporting facilities already built.

What we have not had is a collaborative framework to get the scale we need to engage with investors and developers, and get projects happening across multiple locations. But this is changing.

The community bank network is about to launch a pilot project with the aim of building 200 dwellings across 10 towns under the Distributed Housing Project banner. If we can do this successfully, it should demonstrate to government, investors and developers there is an alternative to building 1000 houses on the edge of a major city.

In regions such as the Wimmera, this project can add momentum to the great work being done by Wimmera Development Association in bringing together interested groups to drive housing development.

As regional people, we cannot wait for improved government policy to have an impact.

It may never reach us, but we can create our own field of dreams. We can build it and they will come.

Matthews, D. (2023). From AgLife column series. The Weekly Advertiser (AgLife), various issues.