My idea for boosting rural and regional Australian economies

I was fortunate to participate in a flight to Longreach, Queensland, on Saturday, raising funds for the Western Queensland Drought Appeal. A key message from speeches made on the day was regional and rural Australia needs visitors. In Longreach especially, tourism is vital given the impact of the four year drought.

I have thought about this a lot since Saturday along with stories I hear from many newsagents in regional and rural Australia about the tough local conditions caused by drought, high unemployment and other factors.

In every situation I can think of, growth in tourism could help.

To urgently encourage tourism to regional and rural Australia I’d like the federal government to offer travel subsidies for families to travel away from the cities, to regions where their tourist dollars will do good for local economies.

The subsidies could be for family flights to regional Australia, accommodation in country towns in bed and breakfast, farm stay or local motel accommodation. I’d love to see local restaurants and find experiences subsidised along with local tourist attractions.

I’d love to see subsidies for city versus country kids sporting tournaments that would bring families from cities to country towns.

I would not want to see subsidies any foreign owned company or any business above a certain size or with a head office in a city – except for airlines to get people to their destination.

This needs to be a regional / rural Australia first initiative, targeting getting people to travel the country, spending locally and boosting the local economies that are struggling.

What this has to do with newsagents is that there is a newsagency in every town. They could be part of managing the program locally. When helps local towns helps local newsagents. Helping newsagents helps a quintessentially Australian business.