Despite record population growth and in-migration in recent years to the 'sun belt' metropolis of Brisbane and the South-East Queensland region, the economy of the area is dominated by consumerism and lacks wealth-producing functions.There is a relatively high level of dependency on Additional Family Payments (AFP) provided by the Commonwealth. These benefits are a function not only of number of children but also of family income. This analysis reveals that within this rapidly growing region there exist dramatic variations in the spatial distribution and concentration of benefits recipients, with pockets of very high dependency.

Geographers and sociologists have had a long-standing interest in issues of equity and socio-economic differentiation in cities in Australia.¹ More recently, Australian literature on the impacts of globalisation and economic restructuring highlights an increasing level of spatial differentiation and segregation in labour markets and economic performance. Some cities have benefited more than others;² within cities, socio-economic disadvantage is concentrated more in some locations than others;³ over time there has been increasing polarisation in the distribution of incomes and the spatial segregation of the rich and the poor;⁴ and there is evidence of the emergence of an urban underclass.⁵

The Brisbane-South-East Queensland (SEQ) region has emerged within the Australian urban system as the most rapidly-growing mega-metro region in Australia's 'sunbelt'. Its population is projected to increase from 1.8 million in 1991 to about 3.1 million by 2011.⁶ Much of this growth is due to interstate (as well as intrastate) migration, and there is a significant component within the in-migration stream of the welfare dependent and those with low labour-force skills.

While it is common for local politicians to trumpet the success of the Brisbane and the SEQ Region as a result of rapid growth, there are increasing concerns over the lack of depth and diversity in the regional economy, which is characterised more by consumption than wealth production. There are doubts about the ability of the regional economy to generate the number of jobs that would be required to keep employed the increase in the labour force that would accompany the projected rates of population increase.⁷ A recent People and Place article⁸ has explored this issue and concludes that SEQ's economy is currently dependent on population-driven growth and the authors remark on the high levels of dependency on welfare transfers in the region. As is usual in large cities, there is substantial spatial differentiation in the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of residential areas. Within the SEQ Region this was highlighted in a recent factorial ecology for the Urban Metabolism study of the Region.⁹

This paper analyses the spatial patterns of recipients of selected Commonwealth Department of Social Security (DSS) family payments as a measure of income support dependency in Brisbane and the SEQ Region. It reinforces earlier findings that the region, as a whole, has above-average levels of dependency, and it identifies sub-regional spatial patterns showing sharp variations in this level of dependency. The analysis highlights where the pockets of high and low dependency are concentrated within the Region and details some of the other ecological characteristics and migration dynamics of those areas. Along with other research being conducted by Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), such results not only indicate the relatively high incidence of income dependency, they also show that this is in keeping with the overall lack of export orientation and high value-added wealth production in the regional economy which has levels of average income well below that for Sydney and Melbourne.

THE DATA AND ANALYSIS

Two types of data were analysed: the Additional Family Payment (AFP) from the DSS as of mid-1994 (relative to the Estimated Residential Population [ERP] aged 0-15 years as of mid-1994), and 1991 census data extracted from CDATA91. The AFP is paid on top of the Basic Family Payment which all except high income families receive. The AFP data involved has two components which were analysed as indicators of dependency above the standard payments made to the majority of Australian children. These components were the 'automatic payment' for children in families which receive other DSS payments (such as unemployment or sole parent pensions), and also the 'income-tested' AFPs paid for children in families which, while not on other DSS benefits, still have low family incomes (the 'working poor'). The 'working poor' are defined by the DSS at a very austere level. The means test for access to the AFP cuts in at a parental income level of around $22,000 per annum for families with one child. The means test threshold is raised by $624 for each additional dependent child.

These AFP data were analysed for all SSDs (Statistical Sub-divisions) and for SLAs (Statistical Local Areas which are areas within SSDs) across the SEQ region which encompasses the Brisbane and the Moreton SDs (Statistical Divisions). Proportions of all children who received the AFP were calculated using the ERP of 0 - 15 year olds from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for 1994.

A range of socio-economic, ethnic and other characteristics of persons, workers, households and dwellings from the 1991 census also were studied using spatial correlation analysis¹⁰ to determine the nature of the ecological association between these variables and the incidence of recipients of AFPs. These 1991 data were the most recent available and must be taken as an indicative of the characteristics of the areas in 1994.

The first distinction to be made is that it is the Moreton SD within the SEQ region and its appreciably higher levels of dependency evident in Table 1 which acts to raise the SEQ regional dependency figure to well above the national average. Although the Brisbane SD can be seen to have a higher proportion of the 'working poor' than Melbourne and Sydney, its proportion of 'automatic payment' recipients is actually lower than that for Sydney and only marginally higher than Melbourne. The Moreton SD, which totally surrounds the Brisbane SD and includes the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, typically characterised as 'sun-belt' growth areas, has relatively high proportions of recipients in both categories.

The proportion of total ADF recipients in Moreton SD therefore stands at 50.8 per cent - more than half of the 0-15 year old resident there in 1994 were in receipt of either AFP. This is higher than the figure for the Brisbane SD which is almost the same as the national figure of approximately 41 per cent and is noticeably higher than the 35 per cent figure of both the Sydney and Melbourne SDs.

At the SLA level, even greater deviations from these national, metropolitan and regional benchmark figures were evident. Table 2 highlights some of the extremely high and extremely low levels of dependency found within the SEQ region. Due to the smallness of the SLAs in Brisbane, the suburban size of these areas highlights the sharp disparities even more. For example, the three outer southern SLAs in Brisbane City (Wacol, Durack and Inala) all had over three quarters and, in some cases, virtually all their children dependent on the AFP. The three selected SLAs on the Sunshine Coast with the highest levels of dependency on the AFP had concentrations more than 50 per cent higher than for the nation as a whole and numbered almost 8,000 recipients. Such high levels of dependency - in terms of proportions and also absolute numbers - represent a little-heard-of aspect of the 'sunbelt-growth' phenomenon which is thought to typify an area such as the Sunshine Coast. Not only is this aspect little-known and under-researched, it is also, no doubt, a controversial issue for some local governments and communities.

THE INCOME-TESTED AFP: THE REGIONAL CONTEXT

The AFP provided to children in families with low incomes gives an indication of where the working poor are located. There were almost 700,000 recipients of this supplement Australia-wide, representing about 17 per cent of the national population aged 0-15 years (see Table 1). The incidence for Queensland is higher at 20.6 per cent, and it was even higher for the Moreton SD at 22.6 per cent, while for the Brisbane SD it was 18.3 per cent. In total, just over 88,000 recipients of this payment lived in the SEQ Region.

Figure 1 shows the proportion of recipients (of ERP aged 0-15 years in 1994) for each of the SSDs of the SEQ region benchmarked against the equivalent national figure. The overwhelming feature evident from these data is that the outer areas of the SEQ region have the highest proportions of recipients of this DSS payment. The Moreton SD balance which contains many of the rural areas and country towns in the Region has the highest incidence of recipients at 27.6 per cent of 0-15 year olds, more than 10 percentage points higher than the national average of 17 per cent. Caboolture Part A, the Sunshine Coast and Beaudesert Shire Part A were the other SSDs in the region with proportions significantly higher than the national average, and these localities are also more peripheral from the larger and more-established centres in the region.

Brisbane City, with 15.3 per cent, was the only SSD in the region with a below-average proportion of recipients of the income-tested AFP. But remember Brisbane City is very large and within it there are marked variations.

The income-tested AFP: patterns of dependency within the SEQ Region

At a finer geographic level (see Figure 2), the spatial variation in the incidence of recipients of the AFP confirms that it is the outer SLAs in the region which have above-average proportions. The areas with the highest levels of dependency were in the outer southern Brisbane City SLAs (such as Wacol with over 40 per cent of all ERP 0-15 year olds in receipt of this supplement). There were 26 SLAs in the region with proportions of 0-15 year olds dependent on this payment, more than 50 per cent above the national figure of 17 per cent. They included not only the predominantly rural SLAs such as Kilcoy, Boonah and Gatton (each of which had 30 per cent or more dependent on the payment), but also many areas which have been more classic examples of sunbelt growth. Part B of each of Maroochy Shire, Noosa Shire and Caloundra City in the scenic Sunshine Coast hinterland, as well as Caboolture Parts A and B, at the gateway to the Sunshine Coast near the Glasshouse Mountains, each have between 25 to 33 per cent of their 0-15 year olds in receipt of income-tested AFP. These areas have grown rapidly in recent years in part because of their perceived high amenity and recreationally-based lifestyles.

What is it about these areas which attracts a high numbers of working poor? To take Maroochy Shire Part B as a typical example of a sunbelt growth area on the Sunshine Coast, employment in the service industries is obviously quite important. But so, too, is construction. This SLA had twice the proportion of its employed persons engaged in construction than the state of Queensland as a whole. Agriculture, forestry and fishing, and recreation and personal services employment, were also over-represented. Unemployment figures are high as is the rate of part-time workers. The state of Queensland had the lowest proportion of professionals (10.5 per cent) in 1991 of all states. However, Maroochy Shire Part B had an even lower proportion at 8.7 per cent. On the other hand, tradespersons were over-represented. A preliminary overview of the occupational and industry profile of this and similar SLAs with high dependency rates reveals an employment structure driven by local population growth and the consumption this growth engenders. The lack of high value-added industries and services in many of these sunbelt SLAs would appear to be reinforcing the cycle of lower-paid and less stable jobs - hence the higher dependency upon the income-tested AFP.

Some very high proportions of dependency on this benefit were also revealed on the Gold Coast - with Currumbin, Broadbeach, Surfers Paradise and Burleigh Heads each recording 29 per cent of 0-15 year olds dependent on this payment. One of these highly dependent SLAs, Broadbeach, had one of the lowest proportions of usual residents in 1991 who were also resident five years earlier. This implies that its population has a high proportion of recently-arrived residents. More than 12 per cent of Broadbeach's usual residents in 1991 had lived in New South Wales five years earlier and more than seven per cent had lived in Victoria.

Figure 2: Proportion of children aged 0-15 years receiving income-tested AFP, 1994

In contrast to these high rates of dependency, the SLAs in the inner and western suburbs of Brisbane City had among the lowest incidence of dependence on the income-tested AFP. In the inner suburb of Spring Hill only three per cent of 0-15 year olds were in receipt of this payment.

The income-tested AFP: ecological correlations

When the variance in patterns of the distribution of receipts of the income-tested AFPs were correlated with 35 socio-economic and other variables from the 1991 census, several interesting ecological associations became apparent. Apart from the expected high correlations between recipients and total persons aged 0-4 and total persons aged 5-14, high correlation coefficients were also recorded for: workers who travel by car to work; two-parent family households; tradespersons; persons with trade qualifications; dwellings owned or being purchased; and persons born in the UK and Ireland. All of these had correlations greater than +0.9 (see Table 3).

Variables with correlation coefficients lower than +0.5 were: group households; medium density housing; persons born in South-East Asia and persons born in Southern Europe. Other variables with a weak correlation were travel to work by public transport, professionals, and persons with university qualifications.

THE AUTOMATIC AFP: THE REGIONAL CONTEXT

The other AFP is the automatic payment which goes to those children in families who receive other DSS benefits. In 1994 there were over 970,000 recipients of this payment in Australia, equating to a quarter (23.8 per cent) of all persons aged 0-15 years. The Queensland figures were higher still, and again the figure for the Moreton SD (see Table 1) was even higher at 28.2 per cent (or over 34,000 recipients). Brisbane SD was just below both the State and national levels at 22.1 per cent, yet it still had over 73,000 recipients.

Figure 3 indicates that the Sunshine Coast SSD had the highest proportion of recipients of the automatic AFP in the SEQ Region. In numerical terms, 10,000 children (aged 0 - 15 years old) living in the Sunshine Coast were recipients. Redcliffe City and Gold Coast City also had approximately one-third of 0-15 year olds in receipt of this payment. In contrast, the SSDs of Pine Rivers Shire, Redland Shire and Brisbane City had proportions which were between 5 to 10 percentage points lower than the national level of dependency, with the Pine Rivers Shire being significantly lower at only 14.9 per cent.

The automatic AFP: patterns of dependency within the SEQ Region

Figure 4 illustrates the patterns of dependency for this automatic supplement within the SEQ Region. Unlike the patterns illustrated in the low income supplement dependency map (Figure 2), here the outer SLAs were not always amongst those in the top quintile, although the six in the Sunshine Coast again were included in the highest dependency category. All six of the SLAs on the Sunshine Coast had between 30 and 40 per cent dependency rates, which is much higher than the equivalent national figure. Yet all are characterised by classic sunbelt growth. Within the SEQ Region there were two main areas of SLAs exhibiting particularly high proportions of 0-15 year olds in receipt of this automatic payment. One area is within the Gold Coast; the other is centred around Logan City. Again these areas have seen some of the most typical features of sunbelt growth over the last decade.

Within the Gold Coast, Broadbeach had the highest dependency rate of 63 per cent (far higher than the equivalent national figure of 23.8 per cent). Another

Figure 4: Proportion of children aged 0-15 years receiving automatic AFP, 1994

eight of the 20 most highly dependent SLAs in the SEQ Region on this indicator were also located on the Gold Coast - Coolangatta, Surfers Paradise, Burleigh Heads, Biggera Waters, Southport, Tugun and Palm Beach. The very names of these SLAs connote much of what underpins the sunbelt migration phenomenon - sun, surf and sand.

The information analysed here is but one of many indicators of reliance on government welfare. It shows that for many who reside in these areas, their lifestyle centres around not only the sun, surf and sand but also around welfare dependence. All of those eight Gold Coast SLAs each had over 41 per cent of 0-15 year olds in receipt of the automatic AFP, which is approaching twice the national figure. These SLAs have average to high proportions of residents who have been living there for less than five years. They also have higher than average proportions of residents who arrived within the five years before the 1991 Census date who came mostly from either NSW or Victoria. It is important to realise, however, that some of these moves may be better be characterised as intercity rather than interstate moves. Coolangatta, which has the highest proportion of 1991 usual residents who were resident in NSW five years earlier (over 22 per cent), is almost entirely surrounded by the NSW SLA of Tweed Shire.

The other area with particularly high proportions of automatic AFP recipients were a cluster of SLAs in outer-southern Brisbane City, linking Ipswich with Logan City. Wacol, Durack, Woodridge, Inala, Willawong and Loganlea completed the list of the top ten most-dependent SLAs and all were located in this corridor. In addition, nearby Bellbird Park, Karawatha, Pallara-Heathwood-Larapinta and Kingston (all with 45 per cent or more of 0-15 year olds in receipt of the automatic AFP) were among the region's most dependent, and all are located in this cluster of SLAs.

The western parts of Brisbane City again had the lowest proportions of children aged 0-15 as recipients of the automatic AFP, along with many of the SLAs in the Pine Rivers Shire and parts of Redland Shire and the outer east of Brisbane City. SLAs with the lowest incidence of all were Kenmore Hills (five per cent), Brookfield, Chapel Hill, Doolandella, Middle Park, Bellbowrie and St Lucia (each with six per cent). For these SLAs and several of their neighbours the proportion of recipients of automatic AFP is only a tenth of the level of those for SLAs with the highest incidence. They show up noticeably on Figure 4 as a large block of white contiguous SLAs in the west and to the north west of Brisbane City.

The automatic AFP: ecological correlations

Apart from the obviously strong correlations between the incidence of the automatic AFP and total persons aged 0-4, total persons aged 5-14, and unemployed persons, other variables with correlations greater than +0.9 were: tradespersons; persons with trade qualifications; two-parent family households; persons unemployed aged 15 -19; persons born in the UK and Ireland; one parent family households; dwellings owned/being purchased; persons in the labour force; and total persons aged 12-24 (see Table 3).

Two variables with very weak ecological associations were medium density housing and persons born in Southern Europe, both with correlation coefficients of less than +0.5. Group households, persons born in South East Asia, professionals, workers travelling by public transport and persons with university qualifications had the next weakest set of correlation coefficients. This pattern differs from the southern capitals of Sydney and Melbourne because Brisbane does not have parallel inner-city high density public housing estates, nor does it have high concentrations of southern European migrants.

SUMMARY COMMENTS
The 'region of opportunity', the 'region of growth', the 'region to lead Australia into the next century' have been popular local descriptions for Brisbane and the SEQ region in recent years. But, behind such boosterish claims about the rapid growth and development that has been unfoldign in this corner of the country is a much more complex interplay of local, national and global processes which are shaping the character of this 'sun belt' region. This perliminary overview of patterns of dependency on income transfer paymetns is a small component of a broader project concerned with developign improved methodologies for evaluating the social, economic and environmental perforamnce of the SEQ Region which is being conducted within an urban metabolism framework.

This data analysis of receipients of AFPS adds weight to concerns about he substainability of rapid growth in the SEQ region. For one thing, it is growth which woudl not have occurred at the same ganitude of Austalia did not have a comprehensive welfare payments. This has important implications for consumption and investment patterns in the region, as well as for economic developmetn in general.

Correlation analysis has revealed development in general. Correction analysis has revealed strong positive ecological associations between the incident of recipients of these AFP and other indices associated with blue-collar areas. This is particularly true of areas located at substantial distances from the CBD. It is here where distances from the CBD. It is here where it is morel likely for dwellings to be mortgaged, for travel to work to be undertkaen by car, and also more likely for there to be person sborn in the UK and Ireland rather than other overseas birhtpalce groups. Also withina sprawling poly-centric metro-region, it is signficant htat there are high concentrations of recipients of benefits in the major tourism areas - the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.

The analysis presented here confirms the findings for the urban metrabolism project of the existence of pockets of deprivation in the region. Often theses are in the fastest growing areas. This has implications for for equity and for polarisation in thegreion. It is important to ensure that those areas where high proportions of children are reliant on AFPs from the DSS are given priority in planning for the proivision of community services, such as training, and in addressing the issues of economic development and employment.

Acknowledgment

The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Samatha Evans (Centre for Population and Urban Ressearch, Monash) who gathered the data used in this paper, and Kingsley Gum for Geographical Information Systems analysis.

References

1. R. J. Stimson, The Australian City: A Welfare Geography, Longman, Melbourne, 1982; F. L. Jones, Discussions of Urban Social Structure, archive, Australian National University Press, 1969; D. W. G. Timms, The Urban Mosaic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1971.

2. K. O'Connor and R. J. Stimson, The Economic Role of Cities: Economic Change and City Development, Australia 1971-1991, Australian Governemtn Publishing Service, Canberra, 1995

3. Australian Urban and Regional Development Review, Urban Australia: Trends and Prospects, Research Report no. 2, Ch. 7 by R. Fincher, Department of Housing and Regional Development, Canberra, 1995

4. R. G. Gregory and B. Hunter, 'the macroeconomy and the growth of ghettos and urban poverty in Australia', Centre for Economic Policy and Research, Discussion Paper No. 325, Australian National University, Canberra, 1995

5. P. Marcuse, 'What's so new about divided cities?' International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 1993, pp. 355-365; P. Marcuse, Is Australia Different? Globalisation and the New Urban Poverty, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), Melbourne, 1996.

6. Regional Coordination Committee, SEQ 2001: The South East Queensland Regional Framework for Growth Management, Brisbance, 1995

7. R. J. Stimson, Brisbane: Magnet City Brisbane City Council, Brisbance, 1991; R. J. Stimson, B. H. Robets, S. P. Taylor, and M. Lindfield, Monitoring A Sun-Belt Metropolis: Evaluating the Perforamnce of the Brisbance and South East Queensland Regional Economy, Australian Housing and Urbsan Research Institute, Brisbane, 1996 (forthcoming)

8. B. Birrell, P. Newman and P. Newton, Sunbelt-rustbelt revisited : the case fo South East Queensland', People and Place, vol. 3, no. 4, 1995, pp.53-61

9. J. Western and A. Larnach, A factorial ecology of South East Queensland', Australiasian Journal of Regional Studies, (Information).

10. The correlation statistic used in this study measures the relationship between the two data sets scales to be independent of the unit of measurement by calculating covariance of the two data sets divided by the product of their standard deviations. This determines whether large numbers in one set are associated with large numbers of the other set (thereby producing a positive correlation), or whether the values in the two sets are unrelated.

11. R. J. Stimson, R. Simpson, J. Western, P. Mullins, M. Manicaros, D. Kemp, M. Lindfield and A. Murray, Urban Metabolism: A Framework for Evaluating the Quality of Life and Performance of Metropolitan Regions - A South East Queensland Case Study. AHURI Monograph Series, Brisbane, 1997 (forthcoming).

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