RDA Orana hosted a Regional Inland Summit in Dubbo on Thursday.

Business people from across the region attended the summit to hear from experts like former federal deputy leader of The Nationals and minister for regional development, Fiona Nash, now strategic adviser for regional development at Charles Sturt University, Dubbo-based civil engineer Jillian Kilby and Welcoming Cities CEO Aleem Ali.

RDA Orana director Megan Dixon said the speeches were on point for what she believed needed to be said about inland regional Australia.

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“The CSIRO presentation actually said one of the things that came out of their research was that they needed different policy responses for different types of communities in regional Australia and that’s actually one of the strong things we’ve been advocating for,” Ms Dixon said.

“One of the reasons we’ve done this as an inland summit is because the issues for inland areas are very different for coastal areas and we want inland to be differentiated when we talk about regions.”

Ms Dixon said she wanted the summit to lead to the establishment of an inland regional alliance, not just with communities from regional NSW but right across Australia.

“The issues in Dubbo are probably the same or very similar to the issues of Alice Springs. We’re both affected by isolation and distance and lack of great internet access, etcetera. We’re both challenged with attracting people to the workforce,” she said. 

“The issues are similar and wouldn’t it be better if we were all singing from the same page with one voice rather than going down and beating on our own drum separately.”

CSIRO research group leader Tom Measham said he spoke about the different ways the future might lay out in different regions.

Dr Measham said he looked at four different scenarios, such as a region becoming a global leader in a particular field or the pressures faces from diversification. 

“We’ve got the background, the trends what’s happening and it depends on how people want to respond to those issues. Do we want to diversify and if so in what ways? What do we want to do to attract different types of people? Do we nee different types of people. These types of questions,” he said.

After selling out the Inland Regional Summit on Thursday, Ms Dixon said she would like to make it an annual event. She said RDA Orana may also hold supportive events throughout the year.