A good use of ratepayer's fund?

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By Dwain Duxson

A good use of ratepayer's fund? - I read where Quilpie, a little town 1000km west of Brisbane, is now offering a $20,000 grant to live and build there. With parcels of land worth less than $20k in some cases, it could effectively mean you could grab a property for free.

Another Queensland township, Julia Creek, offered $500,000 as a wage with a house and a car for any doctor that wanted to move there and start practising. Initially, the offer fell on deaf ears but it was recently taken up by a doctor and their family from South West Victoria.

It's probably costly innovation from these respective Shires/Councils, but it's an investment in the town, and I'd argue that it's a constructive way to spend rate money. And with the Doctor one, they will get most, if not all, of that back. 

The Quilpie deal is a little different, and the incentive has risen from $12,500 to $20,000 just recently. They are hoping to add 20 percent more people to the shire and get the population up to 1000. But, hey, we are seeing plenty of small little towns dying, so it takes initiatives like these to reverse that trend. Act or die. They are the two options facing many rural towns around Australia.

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