Paul Starick: Why there’s a Great Divide between city and country in South Australia

Driving on regional roads and watching Teen Parliament highlights the gap between city and country in SA, Paul Starick writes.

Driving to Robe last weekend for my nephew’s 21st birthday party, I was struck by the poor standard of Limestone Coast roads.

We hadn’t been to Robe for a while – the Princes Hwy had either deteriorated rapidly or was far worse than I remembered.

The road from Meningie to Robe, in particular, was potholed, scrappy and unduly narrow.

The drive to Robe was yet another reminder of the Great Divide between services in Adelaide and the rest of the state.

We live in a state where population – and, therefore, parliamentary representation – is overwhelmingly concentrated in the capital. Of 1,781,516 people in South Australia at the 2021 census, 1,387,290 of them live in Greater Adelaide – or just 394,226 outside that statistical area.

Politicians focus spending and services where the votes are. This has created a gap between city and country.

Road trip to Robe: The Robe Obelisk with stormy clouds and sun setting on cliffs and rocky coastline, Limestone Coast, South-East, South Australia. Picture: Getty Images

To be fair, the Infrastructure and Transport did issue an extensive reply to my questions about the apparent decline in South-East roads.

“Wet conditions during 2022-23 resulted in increased potholes in the South-East, and significant pavement repair works have been undertaken on various roads across in the region in recent months,” a Department spokesman said.

“The Department’s maintenance contractor, Fulton Hogan, inspects the road network in the South-East on a fortnightly basis and attends to potholes as they are identified.”

Perhaps they’ve been missing a fair few. But some work is taking place, as part of a $190m federal and state government funding commitment to a “Princes Hwy Corridor Upgrade”. New overtaking lanes, about 12km south of Meningie, are expected to be finished this year. $17m is scheduled to be spent across the Limestone Coast on road resurfacing from 2022-24.

The city-country divide was emphasised again, just days after the family road trip, by eloquent young speakers at The Advertiser Teen Parliament.

Lead speaker Ashley Hunt, from Streaky Bay Area School, presented a compelling case for improving access to education in the regions.

Streaky Bay Area School student Ashley Hunt speaks at The Advertiser Teen Parliament. Picture: Russell Millard

She urged the extension across the state of a successful Eyre Peninsula education program called Local Delivery, which provides students access to a wider range of subjects than the sometimes limited options at their own school. This generally involves weekly video conferences, with face-to-face contact each term.

“Education is essential to our development as individuals and as a society, because it is the cornerstone of our future,” Ashley said.

“ It is crucial that we make sure that every child, no matter where they live, gets access to a high-quality education.

“Through my experience as a Rural Youth ambassador, I have discovered that children of all ages are, regrettably, affected by the restricted access to this education that persists in rural South Australia.”

Her comments were reinforced by Port Lincoln High School’s Prapti Pai, an immigrant from India. She arrived in Australia when she was 11, living in Melbourne for two years before moving to Port Lincoln (this author’s birthplace).

“In my 13 years of education, I’ve experienced four schooling systems and went to six different schools. Australia, in my opinion, has a very open and flexible education system,” Prapti said.

“However, there’s still improvements to be made. In rural regions, gifted and talented students do not have access to advance and challenge themselves as they do in other states, especially in the early years of high school.”

Port Lincoln High School student Prapti Pai speaks at The Advertiser Teen Parliament Picture: Russell Millard

Prapti argued for an online inclusive pathway for rural and regional students who want “slightly more competitive and advanced learning”, particularly access to study materials and dedicated teachers.

There is a major opportunity for rural and regional areas, which was pinpointed in an Advertiser column by UniSA Credit Union SA chair of economics Susan Stone. “With a good laptop and a high-speed connection, we can work from anywhere … These highly important trends could be a real boon for regional areas,” she said.
But she emphasised studies had shown they needed “good connectivity and good social services”, like schools, health facilities, roads, trains or airports.

Providing these services to a highly dispersed population has been a historical challenge in SA. Governments are obliged to do so, but elections are decided in metropolitan Adelaide, where more than 30 of 47 lower house seats are located. This is now compounded by rebuilding after the River Murray floods. It’s a huge financial challenge in a souring global economy.