It seems the gradual shift of city people moving to regional
Australia is going to be integrated into longer term government
planning. A new report leaked by The Australian yesterday
confirms the majority of regional population growth is caused by
young families moving to coastal areas with an hour or two of a
capital city. While this is not exactly a new storey -
the trend was first highlighted by the Seachange Taskforce about
four years ago - what is new is that the opportunities for
employment, education and a fairly cosmopolitan lifestyle in the
seachange destinations now compare favourably with the capital
cities. The debate about decentralisation to regional
Australia will go on although I consider it highly unlikely to
occur in a large and planned way by state government. What is
more likely is that business will follow the people in their own
seachange and locate to where there is a skilled workforce and
lower costs. This has been the case in Europe with IT, service
industries and manufacturing locating to Ireland and Eastern
Europe, so why not in Australia?
See original article.