Rural and regional Australia

Abstract

Limited attention was paid to rural and regional Australia in the 2007 federal election. Only six of the government's eighteen marginal seats lay there and it seemed to have weathered the ‘rural backlash’ of previous years. The election campaign saw only a few explicitly rural policy differences between Government and Opposition. These involved broadband delivery, wheat marketing and climate change. Yet, the ALP made considerable inroads into the Coalition's non-metropolitan bastion. The swing to the ALP was greater there than the national average and it won more than half of the seats to change hands in rural and regional Australia. While the Coalition still holds a slight edge in non-metropolitan seats, many of these have now become more marginal.

Keywords:

• rural and regional voting
• non-metropolitan seats
• ALP
• Coalition
• National Party
• climate change
• drought

Notes

 1. David McKenzie, ‘NFF chief blasts parties’, Weekly Times, 31 October 2007.

 2. Age, 12 November 2007.

 3. Annabel Stafford and Jewel Topsfield, ‘Rort claims: PM looking down barrel: Report fuels claims of Government pork-barrelling’, Age, 16 November 2007.

 4. ibid.

 5. Scott Prasser and Geoff Cockfield, Rolling out the Regional Pork Barrel: A Threat to Democracy?, Democratic Audit of Australia Discussion Paper 22/07, 2007, http://democratic.audit. anu.edu.au, accessed 19 February 2008.

 6. See Jennifer Curtin and Dennis Woodward, ‘Rural and regional interests: the demise of the rural revolt?’ in John Warhurst and Marian Simms (eds), 2001: The Centenary Election, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2002; Jennifer Curtin and Dennis Woodward, ‘Rural and regional voters return home’ in Marian Simms and John Warhurst (eds), Mortgage Nation: The 2004 Australian Election, API Network, Perth, 2005.

 7. Steve Lewis, ‘PM's 10bn water plunge’, Australian, 26 January 2007.

 8. Jewel Topsfield, ‘PM attacks Victoria's “selfish” water stand: Brumby refuses to budge on crisis plan’, Age, 21 September 2007.

 9. Curtin and Woodward, 2005, op. cit.

10. Peter Veness, ‘Government gives $430m more for drought aid: WA and Tasmania to get $90m’, Age, 18 September 2007.

11. Jewel Topsfield and Orietta Guerrera, ‘$150,000 to leave the land’, Age, 25 September 2007.

12. Katharine Murphy and Annabel Stafford, ‘Regions to get $200m growth aid’, Age, 13 September 2007.

13. Katharine Murphy, ‘PM's bush broadband plan blasted’, Age, 19 June 2007.

14. Michelle Grattan, ‘Flour power: Nationals and Costello in AWB battle’, Age, 25 April 2007.

15. Michelle Grattan, ‘PM's wheat ruling takes a bagging from backbenchers’, Age, 23 May 2007.

16. Richard Baker, ‘Downer “knew” about AWB kickbacks’, Age, 20 November 2007.

17. David McKenzie, ‘$102m rural policy pledge’, Weekly Times, 14 November 2007.

18. David McKenzie, ‘Labor's $190m shuffle’, Weekly Times, 21 November 2007.

19. Weekly Times, 21 November 2007.

20. David McKenzie, ‘Broadband battleground’, Weekly Times, 24 October 2007.

21. Weekly Times, 21 November 2007.

22. David McKenzie, ‘Warning on live exports’, Weekly Times, 7 November 2007.

23. David McKenzie, ‘Water war of words’, Weekly Times, 14 November 2007.

24. Kevin Rudd, ‘We'll back farmers’, Weekly Times, 21 November 2007.

25. John Howard, ‘Rural areas in safe hands’, Weekly Times, 21 November 2007.

26. David McKenzie, ‘Issues call for ad blitz’, Weekly Times, 17 October 2007.

27. ‘Newspoll’, Australian, 22 November 2007.

28. Ian Ward, ‘Queensland’, Australian Cultural History, vol 27, no 2, pp 143–9.

29. AEC website, http://results.aec.gov.au/13745/Website/HouseDemographicFirstPrefsByParty-13745-NAT-NonMetropolitan.htm, accessed 7 December 2009.

30. Scott Bennett, ‘Save Country Seats’: the NSW Redistribution 2005–06, Research Brief No 8, Department of Parliamentary Services, 2007, http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/F64M6/upload_binary/f64m64.pdf;filetype=application/pdf#search=%22save%20country%20seats%22, accessed 7 December 2009.