Regional and Remote Services

More than half a million Western Australians live outside of metropolitan Perth in an area spanning a quarter of a million square kilometres. Services for people living in rural, regional and remote (RRR) Western Australia are integral to addressing the issues of isolation, and socio-economic disadvantage facing people in the bush.

There are a number of critical issues that increase the need for services, but equally make it more difficult to provide and sustain the services that are currently available. These include:

• Higher cost of living in non-metropolitan regions. These have been well indicated by the most recent Regional Price Index created by the Department for Local Government and Regional Development;
• Difficulty attracting volunteers due to the rising cost of living, even though there is a higher dependence on volunteers in RRR (38%) than metro (32%);
• The large majority of workers in the community services industry are female, and yet the population demographic of rural, regional and remote WA is disproportionately male;
• Over 130,000 people have moved to regional WA in the last 5 years from around Australia, and a further 13,000 from overseas;¹
• Aboriginal people are disadvantaged across a range of indicators including health, education, housing, and employment, with over 40% unemployment in large parts of the state; and
• Extreme weather conditions including high and low temperatures, cyclones, torrential rain and drought increase the complexity of people’s needs.

Service providers operating in RRR WA need to be compensated at a higher rate than similar services in metropolitan Perth. The regional index is required to offset both operational costs for service providers, as well as to provide higher living allowances for staff. The cost of living in RRR WA is higher than in metropolitan Perth across a full range of goods and services, as evidenced by the relatively conservative estimates in the Regional Price Index created by the Department for Local Government and Regional Development.

Recommendation:

An additional index of 7% should be applied above the 30% request for rural regional and remote based services

Cost:

$32 million

Download the fact sheet here

¹ABS Census, 2006, Statistical Snapshot and Demographics