Australian Local Government Association

State of the Regions

The State of the Regions (SOR) report - commissed by ALGA from National Economics - provides an annual stock-take of the economic well being of Australia's regions and their prospects for economic development and employment growth. SOR looks at strategies to strengthen local and regional economic and employment outcomes, and emphasises the importance of local government and regional agencies. A distinctive feature is that SOR divides all Australia into regions: both metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions. The regions are divided into six types: core metropolitan (central cities), dispersed metropolitan (suburban metropolitan regions); production (high concentrations of manufacturing); lifestyle (change is driven by lifestyle choices, predominantly post-retirees and tourism); rural (agricultural based) and resource and remote regions (natural resource based).

The core objectives of the SOR are to:

• Present the latest statistical indicators of how Australian regions are performing
• Analyse the indicator trends in terms of growing equality and inequality between Australian regions
• Make suggestions for the policy implications of current Australian regional performance
• Steadily expand the indicators used to measure regional performance
• Describe the reality of regional economics
• Assist local government to understand their regions and to provide useful planning tools

State of the Regions Report 2007-08: Climate Change

The 2007-08 State of the Regions report focuses on climate change and its implications and impact on Australia’s diverse regions. The Report provides a useful overview of international, Commonwealth, state and territory greenhouse policies, as well as critically discussing some of the regional impacts of potential abatement measures and carbon taxes. The Victoria shire of Mount Alexander is presented as a specialist case study.

The issues of water supply, drought, health and legal impacts for local government are also discussed.

The report also provides commentary on the financial state of Australian households as it relates to debt servicing, and concludes with its third review of the state of Australia’s telecommunications - broadband infrastructure.

State of the Regions Report 2006-07: The Landboom

According to most publicised indicators, Australia's economic performance over the past decade has been exemplary. Incomes have increased, unemployment has decreased, and the inflation rate has remained low. In addition, nearly all home-owners have received gratifying capital gains. For many, this additional wealth has provided psychological compensation for increased working hours and reduced employment security.

In this 2006-07 State of the Regions report we look more closely at the land boom of 1996-2005, and see some of the downside of it. However delighted the recipients have been with their capital gains, such windfalls do not come without cost.

State of the Regions Report 2005-06: Telecommunications

The 2005-06 State of the Regions report theme is at the very core of the issues that may well shape the economic development opportunities and competitiveness of Australia's regions. The Report explores the case for the use of telecommunications infrastructure, to assist regions improve their performance.

State of the Regions Report 2004-05: Infrastructure

The objectives of the 2004-05 State of the Regions report (SOR) are to explore the case for the use of infrastructure development to assist regions to improve their performance and to update and extend the SOR regional performance indicators.

State of the Regions Report 2003-04: Ageing, Migration and Population Change

The focus of the 2003-04 State of the Regions report is on how ageing, migration and population growth impact on the economic potential of regions and the revenue raising capacity of local government. The fundamental message from this year's report is that for many regions strong positive population growth with a broad based age composition will be vital for economic growth.

State of the Regions Report 2002-03: Regional Economic Governance

The theme of the 2002-03 State of the Regions report is regional economic governance and along with the traditional update of the regional performance indicators, the Report focuses on governance and the linked issue of growing inequality between regions. This growing inequality is the result of the process commonly referred to as 'globalisation', but in reality represents the outcomes of the shift in economic structure towards the so-called 'knowledge based' or 'innovation' driven economy.

State of the Regions Report 2001-02: Learning Regions

The theme of the 2001-02 State of the Regions report is jobs and learning regions. The prime concern is how well Australian regions are positioned to capture the economic development and employment benefits from the emergence of the knowledge-based or learning economy.

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