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The Voice and the Vote of the Bush

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The Voice and the Vote of the Bush Department of Parliamentary Services Parliamentary Library In or atl a e ea c er ic s The Voice and The Vote ofthe Bush: The Representation ofRural andRegionalAustralia in the Federal Parliament DrJcn/liftl urtin 000 It traliall Pr/rlrtIJJJel/trll I el/ou The Voice and the Vote of the Bush The Representation of Rural and Regional Australia in the Federal Parliament Dr Jennifer Curtin 2000 Australian Parliamentary Fellow ISBN 0-9752015-0-6 © Commonwealth of Australia 2004 Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written consent of the Department of the Parliamentary Library, other than by senators and members of the Parliament of Australia in the course of their official duties. The Voice and the Vote of the Bush: The Representation of Rural and Regional Australia in the Federal Parliament Presiding Officers’ Foreword Established in 1971, the Australian Parliamentary Fellowship has provided an opportunity for an academic analysis of many aspects of the Parliament and the work of parliamentarians. The work of Dr Jennifer Curtin, the 2000 Fellow, examines the attitudes of rural and regional Australians to the work of parliamentarians and the parliament. Dr Curtin has a Master of Arts degree with first class honours from New Zealand’s University of Waikato (1992) and gained her doctorate from the Australian National University in 1997. She then held several teaching posts before being appointed as the APF for 2000, and is currently teaching Australian Politics at Monash University. Much of Dr Curtin’s time as Fellow was spent visiting five large country electorates— Capricornia in Queensland, Grey in South Australia, Mallee in Victoria, O’Connor in Western Australia and Parkes in New South Wales. Using data collected from 85 respondents Dr Curtin analyses attitudes about parliament, politicians and issues of representation. Her monograph aims to give a voice to rural and regional Australians who remain passionate about the importance of representation, but may think they have no voice. This monograph is a contribution towards having these voices heard. NEIL ANDREW PAUL CALVERT Speaker of the House of President of the Senate Representatives February 2004 iii Acknowledgements I have long been an admirer of the work of the Parliamentary Information and Research Service, and so it was with great pleasure and sense of privilege that I took up the Australian Parliamentary Fellowship mid-way through 2000. The support I received for this project from the Parliamentary Library Committee, the Department and Dr June Verrier in particular, was vital to its success. There are also many others in the Library I must thank. John Kain and the members of the Economics, Commerce and Industrial Relations Group, Cathy Madden and members of the Politics and Public Administration Group, the Statistics Group, in particular Andrew Kopras and Gerry Newman; Judy Hutchinson and those in the publications unit, as well as all the staff who contributed to the organisation of my fieldwork. Several senators and members, staffers and members of the press gallery gave me useful insights both individually and at my two work-in-progress presentations. My academic advisers Dr John Uhr and Dr Rolf Gerritsen were invaluable during the early stages of this work. John Uhr also provided me with critical feedback on the final manuscript. I owe a debt of gratitude to Assoc. Professor Brian Costar in his capacity as external reader. His support and insights were invaluable. I am also grateful to Craig Symes for his intellectual input and his endless reading of drafts. Any remaining errors are my responsibility. I must also acknowledge my current employer, Monash University, for the project completion grant to fund the transcribing and initial data analysis, and the School of Political and Social Inquiry’s Academic Women’s Writing Retreat, where was given considerable collegial support. This is an outward-looking project rather than an inward-looking one. By this I mean that much of the work of previous Parliamentary Fellows has focused on what the Senators and Members themselves think or do. This project is about the parliament, but much more from the citizen’s perspective. I am grateful to the Parliamentary Library for taking a chance with this focus, and funding the fieldwork. The project was always going to be an ambitious one in terms of research content. The ‘fieldwork’ component (visiting 5 large country electorates, driving around 2000 km over 4 days in each, interviewing iv The Voice and the Vote of the Bush: The Representation of Rural and Regional Australia in the Federal Parliament 70 people, and receiving written responses back from 15 more) was, not surprisingly, time-consuming (although I know numerous federal politicians undertake this travel schedule frequently). So I thank those 85 respondents who gave me so much of their time and were willing to talk freely and passionately about parliament, politicians and issues of representation. I hope they feel I have done their voices justice in my reporting and analysis. Much of the writing up of this work took place after the term of my fellowship expired. The writing process has been interrupted by a number of minor and major events, including a move to the big-city lights of Melbourne, a new teaching position at Monash University, but the most significant being the birth of my second son Isaac. So I am grateful to my family, Craig, Reuben and Kay for their support and understanding, and to June Verrier for her patience and belief that this work would ultimately appear in print. And here it is. In a sense I feel the delay in publication was a blessing. In the 12 months leading up to the 2001 election there was much speculation as to what might happen with the rural and regional vote. In this context, the material here would have made interesting pre-election reading. But with the near-arrival of asylum seekers aboard the Norwegian freighter Tampa, and the events of September 11 2001, the focus of the November 2001 federal election was diverted elsewhere. Indeed some in regional Australia felt their issues were overlooked almost completely.1 Since the 2001 election, the issues of telecommunications in the ‘bush’, the ongoing survival of country towns and family farms in the face of drought, commodity price fluctuations and deregulation of several rural industries continue to have a profile. Indeed, while there may have been no ‘rural revolt’ in the 2001 federal election, the results did throw up some new ‘representational’ issues such as the rise of Independents in the House of Representatives.2 Publishing this in 2004 has meant that I have been able to link these emerging trends with the points being made by my respondents in late 2000 and early 2001. This was an inspiring project. There are many rural and regional Australians who are disillusioned with their democratic institutions, but they believe that they are worth saving. These are citizens who remain passionate about the importance of representation, but many think they have no voice. This monograph is a contribution towards having these voices heard. v Endnotes 1. ‘Time we were put in the picture’, Weekly Times, 17 October 2001, p. 22. 2. J Curtin and D Woodward, ‘Rural and regional interests: The demise of the rural revolt?’ in J Warhurst and M Simms (eds), 2001 The Centenary Election, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2002. See also J Curtin and D Woodward, ‘Whatever happened to the rural revolt: thwarted by symbols, science and substance?’, Paper presented to the Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, 2–4 October 2002. vi The Voice and the Vote of the Bush: The Representation of Rural and Regional Australia in the Federal Parliament Contents Presiding Officers’ Foreword iii Acknowledgements iv Introduction viii Chapter One: Rural and Regional Discontent: 1 Setting the Scene Chapter Two: Political Trust in Country Australia 18 Chapter Three: Roads to Representation: Alternatives 38 to ‘Traditional’ Party Politics Chapter Four: Creating Connections with Country 68 Australians: Communication Technologies—New and Old Conclusion 90 Appendix: Fieldwork 104 vii Introduction Rural and Regional Politics in Australia The sense of alienation, of being left behind, of no longer being recognised and respected for the contribution to the nation being made, is deep and palpable in much of rural and regional Australia today.1 This statement made by National Party Leader John Anderson in 1999, reflects the political recognition of discontent exhibited by rural and regional constituents in the 1998 election. Demands for recognition and representation by those in rural and regional Australia are not new. The formation of the Country Party in 1920 was explicitly about the right of rural communities to have separate representation in parliament and to allow rural communities a voice in the formation of national policy.2 As a political movement, those who formed the party were looking for two things: socioeconomic concessions, and to register a protest by the agrarian community against metropolitan dominance.3 In this way, the Country Party was able to harness the sense of difference from the city that many in rural and regional communities felt. As a partner in various coalition governments, it was able to influence policies on tariff protection for manufacturing, supports and subsidies for rural industries, and compulsory marketing boards for primary products.4 Over time, these policies became so entrenched that incoming Labor governments seldom tampered with them. More recently, with the rise of a new form of economic orthodoxy, all three major parties have tended to shy away from such policies.
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