In April 2019, the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) convened the historic Regions Rising national summit in Canberra. This summit brought together business, government and community leaders from across rural and regional Australia to discuss the future of regional development. As a result of the hacks...

The NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal has reviewed how we share costs between rural water customers1 and the NSW Government (on behalf of other users and the broader community) when setting maximum prices for the Water Administration Ministerial Corporation’s (WAMC’s) water management services and...

This paper describes an integrated modelling approach suitable for analysing a wide range of policy, economic and environmental issues where spatial heterogeneity is important. The approach involves overlaying whole-farm models onto GIS map layers of land use, soil, climate and topographic information. The integration is...

The current statistics regarding agriculture and farming indicate rising numbers of people are leaving rural areas and changing their lifestyles. In 2012, Australia celebrates the Year of the Farmer, a chance to pay tribute to the important role that farming and agriculture plays in our...

Thirty-two percent of Australians live in the non-metropolitan areas of Australia. This report looks at the development of community committees in rural and regional areas. The desire for rural and coastal lifestyles, advances in communications technology and positive market conditions for industries such as mining...

The role of the Australian Public Service (APS) is to support the Australian Government in responding to economic, social and environmental challenges, through effective policy development and service delivery. It needs to employ the most up-to-date thinking and approaches to deal with increasingly complex issues...

Australia is experiencing an unprecedented expansion of its minerals and energy sectors. The Pilbara region of northwest Western Australia is a significant part of this outcome. Much of this involves on- and off-shore facilities that are vulnerable to natural disasters, industrial accidents and, potentially, acts...

. This e-brief presents a brief history of land access provisions in NSW: first in relation to minerals, and secondly in relation to petroleum (which includes coal seam gas). This paper also briefly examines land access provisions in other States.

The policy package sets out a range of initiatives to better balance growth in the mining and coal seam gas industries with the need to protect important agricultural land and water resources. With the mining industry continuing to grow in regional areas of the State...

The NSW Government is committed to balancing strong economic growth in regional NSW with the protection of our most valuable agricultural land and sustainable management of our natural resources. In the Upper Hunter region, it is particularly important to minimise land use conflicts arising from...