A new addition to the WAFarmers team has CEO Trevor Whittington pondering what can be done to attract skilled migrants to regional Australia
Western Australia has once again recorded the fastest population growth in the country, adding 72,600 people in the year to September 2024.
To put that into perspective: if every one of those new residents moved into the 200 towns across the Wheatbelt’s 42 shires, it would more than double the population of every town.
Yet, on a recent drive across the Wheatbelt, cutting through multiple towns, I didn’t see a single new house being built.
Meanwhile, in Perth’s outer suburbs, acre upon acre of subdivisions are being carved out of sand dunes, with new houses going up at speed.
It begs the question: after eight years in power – and now four more ahead – what has the State Government actually achieved in terms of growing the regional population?
Outside the trendy Margaret River–Busselton–Dunsborough triangle, the answer seems to be: not much.
For the 200 people arriving in WA each day, all roads lead to Perth.
Some of the 446,000 migrants who arrived in Australia in 2023–24 – or the record 739,000 the year before – have ended up in the west, but for the vast majority, our national immigration pattern remains unchanged: most land in Sydney or Melbourne and rarely venture more than 50km west of the CBDs.
Can you blame them for sticking with what they know? Why would they choose to move to a rural town and work in agriculture or mining? Why not stay in the city, drive an Uber, or wait for a cushy government job?
It wasn’t always this way. My Italian father-in-law arrived in Australia in the 1950s as a 15-year-old with no English.
He went bush, started at the bottom as a labourer, learned a trade, and became a respected builder and community leader in a country town. That was once the migrant success story. Today, state and federal governments seem laser-focused on expanding our already sprawling cities instead of fostering regional development.
Look at recent election results – Labor lost in Albany, Geraldton, and Kalgoorlie, suffering significant swings well above the metro average.
That tells you the bush is fed up with the government’s direction.
Meanwhile, Perth’s roads are bumper-to-bumper, and the government’s grand plan is to keep pouring billions into metro rail lines into the CBD – where fewer and fewer people actually work. It’s a stunning example of a government with no real vision for regional development.
Part of the problem is that new migrants simply have no clue how vast Western Australia is or what opportunities lie outside Perth.
Take Omika Upadhayay for example, who now works at WAFarmers.
She has a degree in agriculture from Purbanchal University in Nepal but had been in Australia for three months without stepping outside the city.
She actively sought out job opportunities, persistently emailing me with questions about WA and our ag sector until we took her under our wing.
In just three weeks, she learned more about regional Australia than most of the migrants who arrived over the past two years probably ever will.
This raises an obvious question – why isn’t the government doing more to direct new arrivals into the regions?
Most don’t have jobs, homes, or family ties in the cities. If they’re desperate for a passport, why not make regional work a condition of their visa?
The bleeding hearts will say that’s unfair, but if the government can lock us in our homes during COVID or force backpackers to pick fruit, surely it can offer fast-tracked residency and citizenship in exchange for time spent working in regional Australia.
We used to do this with graduate teachers but it was scrapped in 1987 with claims that it was unfair to make young teachers start in the bush – but was it really unfair, or was it more unfair to the rural schools and communities that now struggle to attract teachers, police, and nurses?
The result is clear – no one wants to live in the bush. If we won’t send our own graduates, and won’t send our migrants, we’re effectively giving up on regional Australia.
Soon, we’ll be a nation where 3.5 million migrants arrive over 25 years – and none of them even dream of owning a caravan or going swagging in the bush.
Few will ever set foot beyond the city limits. They won’t know a thing about Australia’s history, bushrangers, folk songs, early explorers, or the fact this country was built on the sheep’s back.
The solution isn’t just rewriting the pledge at citizenship ceremonies.
It’s about ensuring that when migrants arrive, they’re pointed towards regional Australia – not just Sydney or Melbourne.
Put those IT skills, or whatever got them into the country, to use in the bush.
Let them experience the real Australia first – then they can return to the city if they choose. But at least they’ll have an appreciation for the country and its culture.
In the meantime, I’ll keep schooling Omika on agriculture and politics, while trying to convince her husband to take his IT skills and strike out as a precision systems specialist in the bush.
With seeding underway, he’d be snapped up by a machinery dealer or could hang out his shingle as a GPS tech.
Omika, meanwhile, is already putting her ag degree to work. Whatever they end up doing, they’re exactly the kind of people we need – those who go looking for a job, and keep an open mind about where in the state they’re willing to live and work.
Wouldn’t that be a better way to build the Australia of the future?
Let’s hope both sides of politics joins the dots and takes a policy on linking migration to regional development.
