Digital inclusion in rural and remote Australia: Insights from Northern Gulf farming families and communities

While the Australian Government’s Developing Northern Australia (NA) strategy sets ambitious targets for major essential infrastructure such as roads and water, relatively less attention has been paid how telecommunications and internet needs will be met to ensure NA is competitive and livable in the digital age. According to the Australian Digital Inclusion Index, Northern Australians are far less digitally included that their southern counterparts across three sub-indices: internet access, affordability and digital ability. We sought to understand the lived experience of digital exclusion in rural and remote agricultural communities in North West Queensland. In partnership with Northern Gulf Resource Management Group, and with funding from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, we undertook ethnographic interviews, focus groups and participant observation at rural events and on cattle properties in the Northern Gulf region. The findings represent a rich understanding of the specific, unique factors that contribute to low levels of digital inclusion in rural and remote areas, along with impacts for agricultural families and communities. Regarding access, rural residents said that current services were insufficient to serve their families’ growing education and social needs, or to maintain, grow or expand their businesses, citing issues with speed, data caps, intermittent connections and poor customer service. On the other hand, smaller households in remote areas with relatively modest internet were reasonably satisfied they could complete essential activities online. Regarding affordability, participants on the cusp of several unreliable mobile and internet services tend to “layer up” their devices and plans to ensure they have access when and where they need, which compounds the cost of being connected. Finally, digital ability varies substantially across generations and genders in these households and communities, resulting in diverse unmet needs that require nuanced solutions. We conclude the paper with implications of these findings, including questioning what equitable digital inclusion should look like in sparsely populated areas, a need to redefine our understanding of affordability, and an urgent call for place-based digital ability programs in agricultural Australia