Fly-in fly-out: The challenges of transient populations in rural landscapes

Australia has experienced a prolonged economic boom and Western Australia in particular has benefited from the growing Indian and Chinese economies and their demand for mineral resources. The renewed mining fervour in Western Australia has had far reaching impacts in rural regions. Some communities are overwhelmed by a new population connected with mining, bringing with it a range of social and economic stresses and strains that small communities in particular, are struggling to cope with. In other communities, particular those in remote areas where housing and infrastructure are not able to meet the demands of burgeoning industry, fly-in fly-out (FIFO) labour forces increasingly underpin a wide variety of industry sectors. The scale of the FIFO work force is not easy to ascertain as the Australian Census does not specifically capture this information and the fluidity of the workforce makes it difficult for local authorities to calculate the working population and its demands. With such peripatetic populations, regional authorities struggle to maintain a sense of community and infrastructure without a rate-paying resident population, while local resources are stretched and often unable to cope with the increased FIFO population using them. This chapter will discuss the population changes that are occurring in rural, regional and remote Western Australia and the opportunities and challenges these changes present

Delivering Enduring Benefits from a Gas Development: Governance and Planning Challenges in Remote Western Australia

This paper reviews the complex and multifaceted adjustment pressures being experienced by Onslow, a small, remote town in Western Australia's Pilbara, as a result of a large gas development. Some members of the community are enthusiastic about the opportunities that the gas industry will bring, although the majority are wary of the negative impacts of rapid growth and corporate dominance observed in other Pilbara towns during the mining boom. The paper reports on the strategies being utilised by the company, the different spheres of government and the local community representatives in order to come to an agreement about how to achieve enduring community value so that the aesthetic attributes of the town and quality of life in Onslow will be enhanced, while also accommodating a large constructive workforce which will leave within a short time (4 years). Using data collected about the Pilbara and the socio-economic impacts of the mining industry on other towns, the lessons learned from rapid growth elsewhere were applied in Onslow and the outcomes assessed and reported. It is evident that the community engagement strategies and the collaborative planning processes have been undermined by disconnects between commercial imperatives, governance frameworks, investment risk and timeframes

Statistical boundaries: A means by which the realities of rural decline in the Western Australian wheatbelt has been hidden

This paper will focus on a recent demographic study of the statistical subdivisions between Geraldton and Esperance and an ethnographic survey in that region, undertaken to understand the changes occurring in rural- communities. The paper will then examine the links between continuing depopulation trends and diminishing infrastructure, focusing on how these demographic changes impact on the daily lives of the Western Australian agricultural population, particularly women, and what effect these changes and government policy are having on the delivery of essential services. The overall population of the region from Geraldton south to Esperance in Western Australia, excluding the metropolitan area, has increased in the years between 1961 and 1996. The Australian Bureau of Statistics\u27 (ABS) twelve statistical divisions show fairly steady population growth and politicians and bureaucrats often cite these statistics as evidence of growth, vibrance and percipient regional planning. However, if the ABS statistical subdivisions are analysed even in a cursory manner, it is obvious that the increase in population has not been uniform. A small number of subdivisions show a significant population increase while the majority of inland subdivisions have experienced depopulation. Those divisions which are limited to agricultural production and can be defined as completely rural show a persistent decrease in population. The depopulation trend is exacerbated when the populations of regional towns in these more rural districts are excluded. For those rural dwellers living in the wheatbelt that stretches inland from Geraldton to Esperance the misinterpretation of the statistics has meant that regional issues and concerns are not properly understood by policy makers. There is a feeling that they are the \u27forgotten people\u27, less important than urban dwellers and the mining sector. Furthermore, there is evidence that shows that the rural population feels frustrated by Federal government policy because there is the presumption that the experience of rural Western Australia is necessarily the same as the ·rest of rural Australia

Farm women and work : required but not recognised

Across Australia, government sponsored Rural Women\u27s Networks have been established to encourage rural women to look beyond their individual context and to identify as part of a much larger group of women, all with common concerns. These networks have encouraged women to view themselves as legitimate participants in a patriarchal society and to realise that the traditional male culture of farming is redundant. Fiona M. Haslam-McKenzie, a lecturer in the Faculty of Business at Edith Cowan University, reviews the recognition given to women on the farm

Peri-urban farmland conservation and development of alternative food networks: Insights from a case-study area in metropolitan Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain)

There has been a growing literature on alternative food networks (AFNs); structures that reconfigure the systems of production, distribution and consumption of food. Part of this literature emphasises the local scale and the idea of proximity. In a world that is increasingly urban, AFNs at a local scale can be more easily developed by linking peri-urban farmlands and cities. However, agriculture in the rural–urban fringe struggles to survive in the face of urban pressures and sprawl; a process which undermines viable agricultural production in the city's countryside. A widely used strategy to address these pressures has been farmland protection, undertaken in different ways depending on the legal framework of particular countries. This paper considers farmland conservation and AFNs development issues through a case-study of the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park (BLAP) in metropolitan Barcelona. It concludes that AFNs in peri-urban areas are only possible if farmland preservation is guaranteed, and that the former does not come as a direct consequence of the latter. The specific conditions in which both can occur will be of interest for scholars as well as policy-makers and planners

Sustaining the 3Rs - Rural, Regional and Remote Housing Markets in Western Australia

The housing markets of non-metropolitan Australia are often ignored by both policy makers and academics. The factors influencing housing demand and supply in this diverse sector are not well understood and are often very different to urban markets. This paper explores a selection of rural, regional and remote (3R) housing markets within Western Australia and unpicks some of the issues which drive these markets. For example, the resources boom has had a dramatic affect on 3R towns in Western Australia with the demand for accommodation from mining companies and supporting organisations placing severe pressure on housing markets, both large and small. Resource industry-led demand has increased house prices and rents dramatically in some areas resulting in serious affordability issues for communities. However, even those towns without resource based industries have seen price growth in excess of metropolitan areas creating significant challenges for these communities and their policy makers. Using house price data for Western Australia, the paper explores how different 3R housing markets have been affected by a variety of economic conditions. The paper builds on the quantitative analysis by utilising results from four case study towns within the State. The case studies allow an exploration of the key supply and demand drivers in these towns and offer an insight into the unique circumstances influencing 3R housing markets in Australia. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges facing policy makers if they are to deliver thriving and sustainable communities in non-metropolitan Australia

The relevance of affordance for women "ageing in place"

Affordance is a separate and distinct concept from affordability and is infrequently used in discussions of housing and ageing. It is nonetheless a concept that can provide a cohesive framework for the consideration of wide-ranging socio-cultural benefits thatderive from features of the built environment.Affordance is a term coined in ecological psychology by Gibson (1979). One of the key aspects of Gibson's idea of affordance is its contrast with theories and concepts that rely solely on human perceptions as important in determining the way objects are used.That is, affordances are features of the environment that, given the capacities of a particular agent, facilitate particular actions. For example a doorway affords movement across a threshold. An important fact about affordances is that while they are in a senseobjective, real and physical, unlike values and meanings, they are neither an objective property nor a subjective property. They are both a fact of the environment and a fact of embodied behaviour that exists only in the relation between them.The inter-relationship of the affordance of housing as people age and a property's affordability to enhance affordance has not been considered by policy makers. Nor have the concepts been considered from a gendered perspective. This paper will examinethe potential benefits of applying the concept of affordance to studies of housing and the government policies encouraging 'ageing in place'. It will also consider the interrelationships between affordance and affordability, particularly for 'middlessent'women who are contemplating 'ageing in place'