Remote communities: Improving access to essential services

Australia already has access to the tools, technology, resources and expertise to improve remote community outcomes. Many solutions have been put in place with great success across all Australian jurisdictions and in other parts of the world. But these often have limited scopes and are not being routinely or consistently applied in all remote communities. There are many contributing factors to this – challenges with cost and access among them – but we can do more.

Providing safe and reliable essential services to remote communities is critical to addressing the health and social disadvantages of Indigenous peoples, who are disproportionately affected by poor service delivery. This includes 17.6 per cent of Indigenous Australians residing in remote communities, compared to just 1.5 per cent of other Australians³. In some of Australia’s most remote and disadvantaged communities, service standards fall well below those that Australia has signed up to through the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while service standards and outcomes for infrastructure users vary greatly across state and territory borders. Many existing service standards across different forms of remote infrastructure are unclear, inconsistent, poorly applied, or simply do not exist.

The first step must be to address gaps in the service standards governments set for remote infrastructure across the country. These can and should be aligned to the SDGs, which Australia has committed to deliver. By tightening existing gaps, improving clarity and addressing inconsistency, these standards can act as a minimum expectation for service delivery across the country, for all Australians. These can be agreed by all governments through National Cabinet, with outcomes reported on publicly and transparently.

But it is not enough to simply set new national targets and baselines. The agreements through which governments, utilities and service providers come together for many essential services – Community Service Obligations (CSOs) – need to work harder and better for all Australians.

CSOs have been a fixture of service delivery in Australia throughout much of the past century, but have not evolved significantly. The issues with today’s CSOs are remarkably similar to those raised by the Industry Commission (now Productivity Commission (PC)) nearly 30 years ago.⁴

While CSOs have delivered immense benefits for millions of Australians over the years, many have failed to keep pace with changes in technology and customer expectations, while their rigidity around costs and performance metrics has often not allowed governments and service providers to work collaboratively towards better outcomes for users. Without meaningful reform, we will still be talking about these same issues in another 30 years.

^aInfrastructure Partnerships Australia acknowledges there is no single or neutral term that encompasses the diversity of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples, along with their cultures, languages and histories. To be inclusive of all, the terms First Nations peoples, Indigenous Australians or Indigenous peoples are also used throughout this paper.

In order to help address the ongoing challenges with some CSOs, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia is proposing a new financing mechanism for providing and subsidising remote infrastructure – Community Infrastructure Partnerships (CIPs). These new arrangements could see governments and service providers take a more collaborative approach to meeting local needs, mitigating risks and adapting to changing circumstances, or adopt technologies that can improve services and reduce costs as they become available. By fostering a spirit of innovation and open-mindedness in solving long-standing service delivery challenges, and incentivising performance improvements rather than merely compliance, CIPs could make public funding work more effectively to improve outcomes in regional and remote Australia.

There is no doubt that real change will come at a cost. But few investments could be more worthwhile than in infrastructure to ensure all Australians’ living standards at least meet the SDGs. And by structuring service delivery through CIPs, governments can ensure taxpayer dollars deliver lasting benefits for remote communities, while presenting opportunities for the private and notfor- profit sectors to bring their own expertise and defray some of the cost to taxpayers. Short-term costs can be offset by long-term savings through more resilient standalone systems and networks, while the improved services can underpin real improvements in the living standards, economic, social and cultural potential of Australians living in remote areas.

A shift in how services are contracted will need to be supported by changes to how these services are regulated. While the changes needed would vary across each jurisdiction, these should see improvements in how performance standards for utilities are set, reviewed and monitored, how social licence is established and maintained, and what constitutes best practice service delivery. In many cases, best practice means giving management of remote communities to those best placed to deliver them. This requires a shift in mindset from the traditional ‘top-down’ regulatory model, by empowering locals to drive changes in their own communities – supported by appropriate safeguards – can help to build trust and momentum for real change.

This paper does not purport to have all the answers, nor does it seek to criticise past performance. The fact we can point to published evidence of poor service delivery is a positive, and where critical reviews have been undertaken – it should be applauded, because it is only through knowledge of the issues that we can effectively move toward a better solution. Instead, the paper proposes a shift in approach to challenge the status quo and strive for improvements for some of Australia’s most disadvantaged communities. A critical next step is engagement with not only governments, utilities and service providers, but also representatives of Indigenous Australians’ communities. There’s no denying the scale of challenges across the country, but this presents an opportunity for Australia to lead the world and show how transformation in line with the SDGs is possible.