Abstract:

This paper is based on a number of projects undertaken by the Rural Development Centre including two studies funded by the Hostel and Care Program of the Home Care Service of NSW. These projects examined the accommodation and care needs of older Aboriginal people in the Grafton and Moree areas of NSW. The paper also draws on the results of a pilot project undertaken for the NSW Office of Rural Communities on access to government services in rural NSW. The paper examines some of the assumptions made by current models of service delivery for small rural communities. The withdrawal of health and government services to regional centres is resulting in the transfer of many of the costs of access from the service provider to the service consumer and to the consumers' family network. Volunteers of already overburdened community organisations in small rural communities are increasingly required to deliver services, that in regional centres and metropolitan areas are the responsibility of paid employees. Small inland communities have a shrinking volunteer resource because of changing demographics. This paper examines service delivery with particular attention to these issues. It also examines the implications for equity in access to services of assuming that people in rural areas are able to effectively access transport services and technology based information and services.