Attacks on country dwellers are unjustified

This article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald 20 September 2010

Country people are being unfairly maligned simply because of where they live. Photo: Jessica Shapiro

There has a been a concerted push in recent weeks to convince us that the city, compared with the country, will be getting the rough end of the National Broadband Network "deal".

In playing the city off against the country, however, this chorus has taken economic rationalism to its soulless extreme and done no less than try to paint country people as stupid, lazy, sponging losers undeserving of the NBN.

The main thrust of this view seems to be that it's their choice to live in the country so they have to take the good with the bad.

In trying to persuade us that country people are receiving too many tax benefits for what they're worth, these city-centrics conveniently ignore (i.e. choose to forget) the fundamental principle that someone, somewhere, a long way away, has to produce the things we eat, drink, wear and otherwise consume every day in the city — and that there will always be a price for that.