1. Structural Adjustment Packages: Definitions, Opportunities and Lessons
Professor Andrew Beer Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning University of Adelaide

2. What Do We Know, What Don’t We Know?
Structural adjustment in the Illawarra
A Tale of Two Cities
Personal and regional adjustment
The Riverland Experience
Lessons to be Learned

3. The Illawarra

4. Two Cities: Birmingham and Adelaide
MMAL Lonsdale April 2004, MG Rover May 2005
Adelaide
Structural Adjustment Fund for SA (SAFSA)
Redundancy payments from MMAL
Worker assistance via JobsNetwork
Birmingham
Minimal redundancy payments
Range of government actions via MG Rover Taskforce & Advantage West Midlands

7. Riverland Futures Taskforce
$20m structural adjustment fund established by SA Government (Riverland Sustainable Futures Fund)
Now administered through RDA Committee
Limited take up, slow take up
And does it address the region’s fundamental needs in an era of capital mobility?

8. Opportunities and Lessons
Labour market adjustment
Haynes notes labour assistance packages more effective in buoyant economic conditions
Redundancy payments can have perverse (?) impacts
Labour mobility is a critical issue – the Oswald thesis
Acquisition of formal qualifications key

9. Opportunities and Lessons
Structural adjustment
Packages tied to the region affected, limit the spillover
Tension between supporting industries that will grow and the industries workers will move to
Time frame
Bailey et al note the importance of slowing the adjustment process
Significant action in advance of Rover collapse in Birmingham, on-going company support in SA
Public sector leadership in planning for and managing adjustment