I love hearing these cock eyed arguments.
Regional areas get huge subsidies in the form of postage stamp pricing. The more remote you are the higher the cost to provide basic services, e.g. it costs over $180,000 a year per person to provide electricity to remote WA townships. The cost drops as you get closer to the cbds of the major cities and population density increases, but serving a quarter acre block in a regional town is still orders of magnitude more expensive then an inner city aprtment. Of course the end user never sees the cross-subsidisation, but feel free to get a free ride and whinge anyway.
Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
Oh no doubt...but imagine if no-one lived out here. And there was no agriculture or mining? That's not an inconsequential amount of GDP...and it can't happen if we aren't supported to be out here.
The thing that annoys in terms of service equity is that it wasn't always this way. My little town of 3000 plus people has rarely been larger and never smaller.
There are numerous people my age and younger still in town who were born in its hospital... nowadays, expecting mothers have to be driven two hours to give birth in Tamworth or Dubbo. I spoke to an older lady who'd had a double mastectomy in our hospital in the 80s...theatre is now closed and she'd be flown to Sydney for that sort of procedure. If you decently injure yourself out here or require any constant medical supervision...you are evacuated by rescue helicopter to Tamworth or Newcastle or perhaps even Dubbo...how is this cheaper and more equitable to everyone in the system than continuing to to supply services to the community in the community?
And if the Nationals are the only ones out here bleating about how they stick up for their constituents (no matter how successfully or otherwise) then is it any wonder that people vote for them despite their character & professional limitations?