Socio-economic change and rural morale in South Australia, 1982–1993

Australia, dubbed ‘the lucky country’ by Donald Horne in 1964, still carries a residual image of prosperity and egalitarianism. This paper seeks to show how the morale of its rural people has been impacted by a decade of crisis conditions brought about by natural events, political decisions and adverse terms of trade for export-dependent staple products. At the same time, counter-urbanisation trends have continued in the more accessible and environmentally attractive rural areas, producing two sharply differentiated zones within rural Australia. Using South Australia as a case study, the paper illustrates the results of these trends in terms of rural poverty and demographic change. It then uses qualitative data from responses to a postal survey of 2000 rural households to analyse their perceptions of change over the crisis decade, identifying ten recurrent themes and relating them to the observed patterns of depressed incomes and demographic change. Respondentsʹ own words are used to tell the story.