The examples above indicate the limitations of regional autonomy after some of the major changes of the past 20 years in the context of neo-liberalisation of rural, industrial and environmental policies. They show that although an entrepreneurial spirit has existed among farmers and others as members of industry organisations, and can be stimulated by central government activity at the local level, and although the interests of rural and metropolitan people and institutions have been and continue to be counterpoised in the tradition of country-mindedness, there seems to be limited readiness to become involved in ways that, in the context of ‘new localism’ and potentially ‘new regionalism’, could drive substantial change.
While it is problematic to explain the absence of a phenomenon, particularly when it is basically ideological, I propose that the problem could be due to the embedded nature of the rural world view in a tradition of administrative dependency and a reluctance to break away from that tradition. We have seen that reluctance, possibly in terms of the failure of Graincorp to maintain farmer ownership, but more evidently in the hint of a culture of subservience to the old irrigation provider and the rejection of local government as a vehicle for regionalisation.
A historical explanation for this non-phenomenon is offered by the history of the railways. More than any other institution, the railways, with some variation among the states, present the history of administrative dependency. This is partly because they were a very significant institution in rural development economically and culturally. Blainey (1968) sees the steam locomotive as so significant to the history of rural Australia and particularly the National Party that he suggests that a steam locomotive rather than a sheaf of wheat should be the centrepiece of its coat of arms, were it to have one. The railways established the pattern of rural settlement. While doing so, they focused the economy of each state, to slightly varying degrees, on the capitals. The railways were planned and administered from the colonial capitals in ways that ensured that metropolitan interests were furthered and alternative ports did not develop sufficiently to compete, or develop at all. Among transport historians, Lee (2003) makes this point about centralisation, though he does note variation among the colonies, later the states.
New South Wales and Victoria developed railway systems that focused the exportation of primary products on the colonial capitals and a few other ports, such as Newcastle in New South Wales and Geelong in Victoria. The more decentralised Queensland pattern is a consequence of the great distance between Brisbane, the capital, and the important northern port of Townsville, rather than any decentralising design by the colonial government. The other states’ railway systems were centralised to varying degrees, with Western Australia being the most like Queensland due to its possession of a long coastline and a small number of widely separated ports. The idea of creating more ports in the centralised states was floated. For example, in 1911, a Royal Commission recommended to the NSW Government that a port be developed north of Newcastle and another south of Sydney, with systems of railway lines to serve them, in order to effect decentralisation (Gunn 1989). No such development occurred, though inland extensions of the system connecting Sydney continued into the 1930s. The Commonwealth Government has worked with the states on the interstate railway system, but has left the regional lines entirely to the states.
The railways enabled the creation of a rural society consistent with the image valued by an urban mercantile class rather than that valued by the rural aristocracy. Railway development was part of a deliberate program of social change, by way of the creation of a yeoman farmer class, conducted amid conflict between the ‘squatters’ and urban dwellers dominated by commercial interests. Change was fuelled by an ideology of civilisation. The railway would bring law and order and the institutions of religion and education to the inland. The railway was seen as one of ‘the rudiments of bourgeois civilisation’: a means to ‘tether the mighty bush to the world’ (Clark 1978:96). After noting how appreciative local populations were to the railway service, Gammage (1986:217) puts it bluntly: ‘But the railways were built to serve men in Sydney who equated progress with the economic advancement of the metropolis.’
Gammage (1986:219) illustrates the subservience of a small town to the Sydney railway authorities: ‘railway people, including railway workers, were convinced that some Narrandera street trees had been accidentally poisoned from a railway drain, but in 1983 the men in Sydney decided that this was not the case, and the [local government] council was obliged to let the matter drop’. Even local construction works were contracted to Sydney builders (Sharp 1998). Rural people have been well aware of their place in the relationship between rural interests and railway administrations.
Corresponding with the rise of road transport since the 1950s, the railway systems have come to be defined politically as problems more than as assets. Regional railways have been seen as problems almost from their opening. In New South Wales during the 1960s, the railways’ finances rather than their capacity to provide transportation became a serious political problem, despite the railways still being able to cover operating expenses into the 1970s and freight services doing so into the 1990s (Industry Commission 1991). Nevertheless, the solution adopted by all governments except that of Queensland has been to privatise freight services and, in some instances, passenger services as well. In each case, buyers willing to continue regional services, for at least some period, were found.
While this change has been going on, the practice of ‘cost shifting’ has worsened. Cost shifting occurs when a regional railway is abandoned without any compensation to local government for the increased damage to be suffered consequently by local roads. The additional road maintenance costs can be substantial, which when accompanied by local concerns about road safety, gives local government an interest in rail transport. Such is the weakness of the still highly dispersed local government system that it has been unable to counter the problem. Many councils have protested to state governments about the deterioration of services and appealed for them to be improved, or in some cases restored, after cessation. At least one council has considered taking over a railway (Bourke Shire in 1989; see Industry Commission 1991). It was not successful. There has been no organisational platform and not much indication of enthusiasm among rural people for running their own railway system—certainly nothing comparable with the levels of enthusiasm and organisation shown by farmers through the privatisation of grain handling and irrigation. This differs substantially from the experience in North America, where there are now many locally and regionally operated railways, which are products of local initiative (Beingessner 2003). It should not be attributed to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of rural people or to a lack of entrepreneurialism or to the absence of the idea (see Lander and Smith 2004). Rather, sense can be made of it in terms of the centralised administrative tradition maintained by government and the contradictory nature of the relationship between railways and local communities.