Only in Queensland? Coal mines and voting in the 2019 Australian federal election

Abstract

ABSTRACT Australians are deeply divided over the prospect of new coal mines. Heated political debates at the federal level between conservative Coalition governments and Labor and the Greens echo divisions in public opinion. New data from the 2019 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems show that almost half of all Australians agree the government should allow the development of new coal mines, although substantial divisions in support are apparent on the basis of social background, political orientations and party identification. Our social and political background findings are almost the mirror image of the correlates of accepting anthropogenic climate change. State-based differences are also apparent, with Queenslanders more likely than people in other states to support the construction of new coal mines. Yet, while in regional Queensland voting decisions may have been influenced by the prospect of increased employment, in general, voting in Queensland does not appear to be associated strongly with attitudes toward new coal mines. Simplistic binaries of acting to ameliorate climate change versus supporting the fossil fuel industry fail to account for the complexity of Australians’ views on coal mining and carbon emissions.