Victoria’s state government has announced a five-year, $600 million, plan to stimulate growth outside the state capital.

72 percent of Victorians today exist squashed together like clockwork sardines in Melbourne.

The government intends starting things off by relocating 400 government jobs to regional centres (Ballarat, Bendigo and Moe).

Union spokeswoman, Karen Batt, says that career promotions must be offered to get city-based families to move: “All employers know that promotional opportunities drive employee location choices, and this is what we’ll be advocating to government.”

She means well, but she is wrong.

Offering urban-style people urban-style reasons to become non-urban can never work.

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Yes, it’s important to get millions of Australians out of cities and into communities based on the land — not for economic reasons, but for spiritual reasons.

Modern city living is a non-stop inducement to compromises with sin.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, in an address on the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination as a priest, said: “I wish that, in these troubled times, in this degenerate urban atmosphere in which we are living, that you return to the land whenever possible. The land is healthy; the land teaches one to know God; the land draws one to God; it calms temperaments, characters, and encourages the children to work.”

As usual, he was right.

See how they live in cities. Living in residences that they do not own. Mothers going out to jobs. So many families with only one or two children. Talking biodiversity, yet living clone-like lives of commuting to office or factory, punctuated by leisure hours glued to electronic screens.

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The Bible tells of the “exodus” of the Children of Israel away from the advanced culture (for those times) of Egypt — to go and live in the desert.

We all remember Moses saying to Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”

Do we remember the full wording of the request?

Moses said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews: let my people go TO WORSHIP ME . . . .”

Only for religious reasons will people leave urban, materialistic life — and really persist and persevere in God’s ways.

Otherwise the novelty will wear off and regional towns will revert back into nauseous little mini-Melbournes.