The Lucky Country? Inequality in Rural Australia
01/05/2022
Peter Littlejohn
As a rural Australian and Communist I’m often irked when people, mostly politicians, claim without a hint of irony that Australia is the “Lucky Country”. Chest-thumping declarations that Australia is a technologically advanced and wealthy country are hard to swallow when I look around and see the dilapidated infrastructure the forgotten people of rural Australia put up with. Despite making up 28% of the Australian population, rural and remote Australians are often left with massively inadequate infrastructure, education, employment and healthcare services. These issues particularly affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, leading to worse outcomes in health, education, and housing. While failing infrastructure and poor services is the lot of many rural and remote Australians, this fate is increasingly being shared by working Australians in cities. Keeping the idea that Australia is “modern” and “advanced” alive is one of the ways the Australian bourgeoisie seeks to suppress class consciousness in Australia.
Living in a rural town means living with out-dated medical care. Local healthcare centres in rural towns are not equipped to deal with many of their communities’ medical needs. Rural Australians are forced to make long, expensive trips having to access life-saving specialist care. A 2019 report into rural and remote access to healthcare found that “On average, Australians living in rural and remote areas have shorter lives, higher levels of disease and injury and poorer access to and use of health services” [1]. Potentially preventable hospitalisations are 2.5 times higher in remote areas compared to major cities. This issue is even more serious in remote Aboriginal communities, with 30% of Aboriginal Australians reporting that they needed, but did not see, a health care provider between 2018 and 2019 [2]. With 45% of very remote Australian workers being Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, significant portions of rural and remote Aboriginal communities are under threat [3]. How can politicians claim with a straight face that we are an advanced nation when millions of Australians go without acceptable access to healthcare?
Education is another area where rural Australians are dealt a raw hand. Australians in rural and remote areas are 25% less likely to graduate high school, and 18% less likely to complete tertiary education [4]. These education levels are so much lower in part due to the decreased educational opportunities and lack of jobs which pay a decent income. How can rural Australians attend a university when there isn’t one around? With rural internet access being poor, intermittent, or non-existent, “advanced technology” has not yet reached all Australians.
The lack of education and health opportunities is often given emotional lip-services in federal and state parliaments, but little is ever done about it – A capitalist state is simply not interested in providing equitable care to all its citizens. Read any government report about rural inequality and you’ll come across one word in particular: cost. It is apparently too “expensive” or “impractical” or “not economically viable” to provide vital services to rural Australians, we’re simply too far away for it to be worth it. When these reports say too expensive or not economically viable, what they really mean is providing essential services to Australians is not profitable enough for private corporations to invest in. The capitalist state serves the ruling class, so decisions of government policy hinge on whether there is money to be made for corporations.
Overlooking rural infrastructure has had disastrous consequences in the recent floods on the East coast of the country.
Compare this with Cuba, which despite the inhumane blockade the US subjects it to and the resulting relative poverty, has an infant mortality rate lower than the United States, and has brought accessible and lifesaving medicine to all its people [5]. A socialist Australian government ran by the Australian people for the Australian people would be able to extend the vital health and education services to rural Australians that capitalist governments refuse to. The reason the bourgeois state and media continue to parrot the line that Australia is singularly “modern” “agile” and “advanced” is to keep you from getting angry about being ripped off. With recent issues with the capitalist economy however, this façade is slowly starting to slip. As housing becomes unsustainable and the cost of living increases, many Australians are coming to realise that a “modern Australian life” is only available to those with means. For those who go without, there is a very different picture of Australia: one that is cruel, uncaring, and unwilling to help them.
We should be striving to create a different Australia, one that willingly meets the needs of all its citizens. A socialist state, led by a vanguard party controlled by the working class would provide equal access to all Australians. Australia has more than enough resources for everyone to get by, we simply lack a humane economic and political system.
References:
[2] https://www.indigenoushpf.gov.au/measures/3-14-access-services-compared-with-need
[4] https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/rural-and-remote-health