The Economic Geography of Australia and Its Analysis: From Industrial to Post‐Industrial Regions

Abstract

The Australian economy has experienced profound change over the last five decades, moving from an industrial to a post-industrial structure. This transformation has had far-reaching implications for the nature of economic activity in Australia and has provided the backdrop for the evolving analysis of the nation's space economy. The paper argues that three interrelated themes underpin much of the work of economic geographers in Australia: the impacts of globalisation on Australia's space economy; neoliberalism and the governance of regions; and policy-focused analysis of regions, their history and prospects. The paper concludes that economic geography will continue to make important intellectual and practical contributions to Australia in the near future as the reshaping of the Australian economy continues and as new challenges reshape the nation's regions.

Planning regional development in Australia: questions of mobility and borders

“…These features present diverse challenges for different regions, which are made more complex by the politics of a federal system of government (Beer 2012;Beer, Maud, and Pritchard 2003;Collits 2004). As demonstrated below, in all of these areas, issues of mobility and borders contribute to this distinctiveness.…”

“…The most recent iteration of this is the way in which these cities have been recast as globally connected 'city-regions', sites of 'new economy' industries and facilitators of mobile processes of financialisation (Maude 2004;McGuirk 2002, 2003;Searle and Pritchard 2005). The dominance of the capital cities, combined with the presence of the National (formerly the Country) Party in all levels of government since the 1920s, has had the added consequence of regional policy in Australia becoming synonymous with rural and remote regions (Beer 2012;Beer, Maud, and Pritchard 2003;Collits 2004Collits , 2008. Furthermore, the crossing of state jurisdictional boundaries has proven difficult for centuries, whether it is overcoming the different rail gauges that inhibited the transfer of people and products in the 1800s or, in more recent years, the way in which each state has thwarted the management of the Murray-Darling Basin and the movement of water through this system.…”

“…Economically, the mining boom has presented a number of regional planning challenges, which relate explicitly to issues of mobility and place (Beer 2012;Haslam McKenzie et al 2009;Lawrie, Tonts, and Plummer 2011;Storey 2010). Such issues range from how to manage global capital mobilities and their distributional impacts (e.g.…”

“…Lastly, Australia's federal system of government leaves all three tiers of government (federal, state and local) uncertain as to who is responsible for regional planning and policy and, more importantly, who funds it (Beer, Maud, and Pritchard 2003;Collits 2004). Accompanying this regional planning context is an ever-shifting smorgasbord of policies around how best to 'do' regional development (Beer 2012;Beer, Maud, and Pritchard 2003;Collits 2004Collits , 2008Daley and Lancy 2011;Dufty 2008). As Beer (2012, 272) notes, traditionally: 'Australian governments have taken a ''regional equity'' approach to these disparities.…”

Institutional thickness and institutional effectiveness: developing regional indices for policy and practice in Australia

“…The Australian economy and system of government shares many of the characteristics of other developed economies -including Europe, North America and Asia. It is an advanced, prosperous economy that has undergone considerable restructuring over the past 30 years (Beer, 2012), with strongly developed democratic traditions and a federal system of government. The Australian government has a limited role in the development of regions, although it exerts an enormous influence through its taxing powers, a strength underlined by its control of 80% of public sector revenues (Brown, 2006).…”