A new Economic Issues paper – Assisting Regions and Communities to Cope with Structural Change: Context, Objectives, Principles and Good Practice – was recently distributed to Corporate Members.

This paper is the final of three papers on regional issues with earlier papers exploring first, Re-Thinking the Approach to Regional Development in South Australia (EIP No. 28) and second, the “rejuventation” of the Provincial Cities following a protracted period of decline through the 1990s (EIP No. 29).

In this paper, Emeritus Professor Cliff Walsh and Associate Professor Michael O’Neil consider structural change and the adjustment pressures that regions experience. The principal purpose of the paper is to develop:

• an overarching framework within which structural adjustment issues can be appropriately considered;
• a statement of general principles of guiding whether, when and how it is appropriate for government to assist regions to cope with structural adjustment pressures, whatever their source; and
• a set of good-practice principles to appropriately shape the practical design and implementation of regional structural adjustment assistance where it is offered.