Radicalising the rangelands: disruptive change or progressive policy?

Abstract

Only ~15% of Australians now live outside the cities and the essentially suburban coastal corridor. Those coastal suburbs are home not to the descendants of drovers and Anzacs, but to ambitious migrants from Asia and the Middle–East, with no taste for rural life. Under pressure of globalisation and market economics the narrative of the rangelands has changed and with that the national interest in the rangelands has declined. Increasingly self-interest has over-powered national interest in the rangelands. The traditional narrative relied on mining, pastoralism and tourism and the contest for land and resources between these sectors and Aboriginal interests. The early champions in each of these sectors were revered. Today these sectors are driven more by self-interest and international investors than national interest. Today, there is not the same recognition of the names like Kidman or Flynn or Perkins as in the past. The rangelands are no longer in the hearts and minds of the nation. Rangelands impinge to a degree on national security through the buffer of confidence their vast expanse provides to coastal communities. Rangelands also figure in the national conscience through the complexity of issues around ‘the problem’ of Aboriginal lifestyles as perceived by coastal communities. Yet topics that spark national interest in rangelands are hard to identify unless they relate to share dividends. In this indifferent environment, will the rangelands benefit from grand national-policy initiatives or from increasingly focussed progressive policy? This paper argues for a narrative with a more disruptive and innovative radicalisation of the rangelands to re-ignite national interest and national investment.