Very true and an all too easy problem to solve.
Why shouldn't government say to banks... be a banking institution in Australia but that means 25% of your branches must be in regional cities and then 25% of those must be in smaller towns. Why shouldn't government say to miners, be a miner in Australia but that means 25% of your workforce must reside in the regions etc. Same with private health providers/ private transport/ etc. etc. Its not unheard of, media laws govern ownership and by default, place of operation - why not for industry generally. Most of all, in time, they all benefit. In fact the early adopters would likely gain significantly as new markets grow. Australia should be a world leader at long distance transport efficiencies and technology. Why? because we had to get good at that to develop our own national opportunities (well, we would in this dream!) Thereafter everything else becomes self sustaining.
Then you'd say, region to region flying looks like a service the nation could use. This is a nation that regularly talks in terms of tens of billions of dollars. In no time that will escalate to hundreds of billions. I don't see this as a big deal. Other nations did this decades or even a century ago. When do we get out of first gear?