Chapter 2: Has Australia’s administrative heritage maintained a culture of agrarian dependency?

The Australian Federation brought together colonies that had developed centralised administrative systems over an equally centralised pattern of settlement. Rural society was developed under agrarian ideals that differentiated country from city in social and political as well as cultural terms. While similar ideals were held in Europe and North America, the colonial administration of such important instruments of rural development as railways and local government left Australian rural areas in a condition of dependency that the regionalist traditions and stronger local governments of Europe and North America might not have permitted. The expression of ‘country-mindedness’ and the establishment of the almost unique National (formerly Country) Party alongside administrative tradition have helped to preserve a climate in which appeals to administrative apparatuses firmly based in state capitals have been the principal recognised means of solving local problems. Rural culture as well as the structural conditions of dependency could have blinkered community perception of possible means of local advancement by way of self-governance, other than where business opportunities are presented in familiar industries. Much has been said and written about rural communities being blinkered to economic opportunity, but despite some penetrating analysis, conflation of economic and political dimensions remains a problem. Criticism of rural communities for being blinkered and passive is paradoxical in a cultural context in which self-reliance at the individual level is held as an important ideal and farmer organisations have been very active. After examining some literature, this chapter illustrates these points with brief references to the history of grain handling, irrigation, natural resource management and railways in New South Wales, from their establishment through to the restructuring that occurred during and since the 1990s. In concluding, this chapter suggests appropriate dimensions for cultural research and analysis.