Rethinking investment into country towns to encourage new uses for old buildings, and the all-important roadhouse, could be the key to attracting skilled workers, WAFarmers CEO Trevor Whittington says
Every country town has at least one building that lies abandoned or underutilised and could be turned into a house or unit that could attract another worker or family to the community.
We have old train stations and Roads Board buildings, abandoned shops in the main street, empty pubs, unused halls, even farmhouses close to town that have been left to deteriorate.
If regional communities are serious about surviving population decline, they need to accept that investors are not going to flock to build a $400,000 house on a block of land worth $50,000 that has no future capital gain upside.
Forget about convincing skilled workers to accept a rental in the old state housing asbestos houses on the wrong side of the tracks – you don’t want to live in them and neither do they.
Can we collectively lean on our local councillors, the Minister for Regional Development and opposition parties to come up with a ‘Regional Renovate to Rent’ program?
This could allow communities to tap into a rolling $15 million fund to redevelop at least one property in every town every year until 2030 to fill the rental gap.
Forty towns given $400,000 a year to turn an underutilised building into quality accommodation will help save our heritage and put another apprentice or family into the community.
Is your town lacking in these skilled labourers – unable to accommodate a plumber, electrician, air conditioning mechanic, car mechanic, tyre shop, or independent ag mechanic?
Another solution is for the council or a group of farmers to get together and buy an industrial lot, build a lock-up shed and offer to rent it out for $1 a year, then stand back and watch the rush.
This becomes even better if you can throw in a transportable house out the back or at the caravan park to help them get settled in.
Skilled people who are good on the tools and qualified will go bush and set up a business if we make it easy for them.
More than one group of farmers I know have employed a mechanic between them on a drive-in, drive-out basis to service all their machinery.
Take it to the next logical step and it only takes a small group to get together to underwrite a $200,000 investment in a quality industrial shed in town and a lease on a house and they have their own priority mechanic.
Even better, insulate the house and add air conditioning and watch the fly-in, fly-out workers line up to be there.
Alternatively, fund an expansion of your local dealership to take on two more apprentices and have the community buy the block next door to expand the size of the business.
The big dealers are getting bigger and consolidating in the bigger towns, but this will help them to get big before they get out of town.
Big sheds attract small businesses that will grow and help fill the town’s schools and football teams.
Pick the business you want the most in town, build it and they will come.
It is also important that existing businesses – including the roadhouses which so many towns are known for – continue to thrive.
I drive a lot around the Wheatbelt and I know most of the roadhouses.
I stop because they are quick and I can dash in and out for a coffee without waiting for hours, although I’d be happy to wait if the alternative was that there is no roadhouse at all, or they are closed.
Some towns have neat little cafes, but these are often not open when I drive past in the evening.
Don’t go travelling off the major routes on a Sunday as many of our roadhouses are closed, which is not a good sign.
When the roadhouses start shortening the hours, the town is on death’s door.
I used to think the pub was all important, now I’m thinking all roads lead to the roadhouse.
Somewhere, anywhere to get a coffee or an icy pole on a Sunday afternoon. No shop means no hope.
Even the ones that are left are looking old and tired with poor amenities and I hate to think what overseas tourists heading to Hyden or up north must think.
Why would roadhouses upgrade when the federal government makes it so expensive to employ workers though – and that’s assuming you can find workers willing to do a stint in the bush selling Chiko Rolls and making buckets of chips.
Government policies are killing small service businesses in rural Australia and you can just see it in the state of our country roadhouses.