A message from the Mayor - Service Equity
Published on 22 February 2016
Equity has been a bit of a hot topic in our community over the past few months and while a lot of it has been focussed on gender equity,today I want to talk about some other equity issues facing rural and remote communities such as ours – the issue of service equity.
We live in a fantastic part of the world and we’re lucky to have a community that works hard to provide amazing opportunities and supportfor local people, events and projects. While living in regional areas has some wonderful lifestyle advantages, there are some cleardisparities when it comes to accessing services for many in our community.
What happens when members of our community fall on tough times? What happens when our friends and family get unwell? Who helpssupports our students if they need to leave the region to study?
The cost for carers who have to spend extended periods in Melbourne or Adelaide when a family member falls ill and can’t access carelocally, can be astronomical. Add to that the associated travel costs and you can be looking at thousands of dollars, much of which isn’tcovered by Medicare or Private Health funds.
Students who need to move to capital cities to study and have to face the added costs and stress of living away from home, are often on theback foot financially before their studies even begin.
In many instances, helping people in these situations falls back to our local community and our local charities.
Equity in terms of access to health and education, which in turn lead into employment and transportation, are just some of the issues ourstate and federal governments need to look closely at in terms of rural and regional communities.
Mildura Rural City Council is a supporter of “Rural Living”, a group of Councils who work together to lobby to government to ensure allVictorians have access to a minimum set and standard of local government services. The group’s primary role is to make sure our residentsaren’t disadvantaged when it comes to accessing basic services, such as health and education, just because of where we live.
Rural communities such as ours provide our metropolitan neighbours with many of the raw materials, produce and products they need tokeep their communities going – from farming to mining to manufacturing – and yet at times, it seems our contributions are undervalued.
Yes, we all make choices about where we live. And yes, we know there are some support programs available. But in the ever crowdedcities, shouldn’t we be at least recognised, if not rewarded, for reducing the burden on and supporting metropolitan areas by creatingdiverse opportunities for people to live elsewhere?
We are lucky here. The health services and education institutions we do have in our region are generally of an excellent standard. Butmore can be done.
We’re not asking to have every service on our doorstep. We just want the ability to be able to access the services when we need them in away that doesn’t financially cripple the people most in need.
Cr Glenn Milne
Mayor