Peter Dutton says regional planning for population boom 'just not there'

More than 100,000 people made a tree-change in the past 12 months, but regional and rural areas have been severely hamstrung by a lack of hard infrastructure, such as housing, and soft infrastructure, such as medical services and childcare.

Speaking at the Regional Australia Institute summit, the Liberal leader said the demographic shift to the regions had been known to governments since the first intergenerational report in 2002, but not enough had been done to capitalise on the emerging trend.

"The acceleration of people moving out to regional areas is something that should be captured, but the planning is just not there," Mr Dutton said.

Mr Dutton said in capital cities "the roads are clogged and services are already at capacity", while the pandemic had opened up the option to work remotely.

"All of that is a perfect storm for the [regional] infrastructure to be funded," Mr Dutton said.

"That's required to be done in a planned way and there's a lot of frustration when you meet with mayors or councillors.

"There's a frustration there between the three levels [of government] and the split responsibility that often ends in the blame game... which is probably bigger than it's ever been."

The Regional Australia Institute is calling on the government to create a national population plan to help rebalance the nation, by guiding people, industries and infrastructure towards the regions.

"We need to know where people are moving to, where the jobs are, what the jobs of the future are, and what is the soft and hard infrastructure that needs to be wrapped around that," RAI chief executive Liz Ritchie said.

Mr Dutton said the national population plan was "a logical proposition", but questioned if governments had the political will and coordination to turn the research into action.

"That's the missing link in my mind... I don't think that has the coordination at a federal level," he said.

The Liberal Party is Australia's second-largest regional party, holding almost as many rural seats (11) as the Nationals (12), while Labor holds just four.

"People in regional Australia shouldn't be seen as people in capital cities as a resource for them to lead their life," Mr Dutton said.

"I believe very strongly that all Australians should be treated equally. People in regional areas have the same claim to amenity and the same claim to the lifestyle where they can bring up their families as people in cities."