‘All dressed up with nowhere to go’: Navigating the coal seam gas boom in the Western Downs region of Queensland

Abstract

Communities living in South-East Queensland have the longest experience of social and economic impacts and benefits from unconventional gas development in Australia. While the ‘rush’ to develop coal seam gas (CSG) in the Western Downs has already been characterised by others using the ‘boomtown’ moniker, there is little research that tracks, over the resource development cycle, community experiences of the impacts and benefits of a resource boom of this kind, and whether this translates into shifts in social license for the industry in question, over time. This article responds to this lacuna by using a longitudinal ethnographic approach to respond to the question, how does a social license – connected to community experiences of (positive and negative) socio-economic and environmental impacts of a resource boom – change over time? Through engaging with farmers and people living in townships in the Western Downs before, during and after the height of the CSG industry’s construction phase, this paper identifies substantial changes in the social license to operate for the CSG industry in relation to the different stakeholder groups involved. These findings indicate that perceptions of industrial development are not static and morph, principally in relation to the relative impacts and benefits (perceived industry legitimacy) and trust levels (influencing perceived credibility) of industry and government.