Development In Queensland Research Articles

Technology Focus: Gas Production (August 2021)

The carbon-free future should not be confused with a utopian future. A zero-carbon world will include the difficult realities experienced in Texas in February 2021. As shown in a graph of US EIA data, during the recent extreme cold event in Texas, wind and solar could not hold flat compared with their baseline the week before (4–8 February). Coal and nuclear remained mostly steady, while natural-gas producers ramped up supplies delivered to power plants by a factor of 4, helping people who were struggling to heat their homes. Natural gas may not receive well-deserved recognition from some quarters, and blackouts and loss of life still occurred, but our industry stepped up when people needed us most. Texas generates 25% of the wind power in the US and has more solar potential than 18 northern states combined, yet wind and solar simply failed when called upon. As the world attempts to go carbon-free, this reviewer hopes that more consumers will see the difference between results and public-relations promises. It will take a legitimate technological step-change before an unsubsidized renewable energy source is capable of replacing reliable fossil fuels. Imagine if Sir Isaac Newton, with all his brilliance, had tried to be the first man to land on the moon. In 1720, the cumulative knowledge did not exist to allow that to happen, and, if he had tried, he could have spent the entire British treasury and still failed. By standing upon the shoulders of giants like Newton, others were able to reach the moon 250 years later. Step-change technological breakthroughs happen when their time has come, not when mandated by political pressure. Until you hear that commercial fusion reactors are online or that low-cost, grid-scale electricity storage made from commonplace materials can handle a 10-day cold snap or heat wave, there is no need to hang up your pipe wrenches. Fossil fuels will remain the most energy-dense, cost-effective, reliable energy source until an extraordinary breakthrough creates a better alternative. The three papers selected for this feature demonstrate the continued critical role of gas production, and innovation therein, in the necessary daily role of supplying the world’s energy needs. One discusses means of exploiting stranded offshore gas reservoirs; the second details an Eagle Ford cyclic-gas-injection enhanced-oil-recovery effort; and the third focuses on the fracturing interference of multi-well pads in shale gas reservoirs. Reference Wilson, Scott. 2021. “EIA Texas Power Generation Data, February 2021.” Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 200468 Hydraulic-Fracturing Test Site Phase-2 Enhanced-Oil-Recovery Pilot: Huff ’n’ Puff Pilot in the Permian Midland Basin by Shadi Salahshoor, Gas Technology Institute, et al. SPE 202448 Unconventional Gas Development in Queensland, Australia: How Well Does It Align With the Golden Rules of Gas? by Katherine Witt, The University of Queensland, et al. SPE 203208 Underbalanced Well Intervention to Re-Enter a Dead Well Changed the Future Dynamics of the Largest Gas Field in Pakistan—A Successful Pilot Project by Qasim Ashraf, Weatherford, et al.

Social identity in the energy transition: an analysis of the “Stop Adani Convoy” to explore social-political conflict in Australia

Australia is undergoing an energy transition, largely spurred by efforts toward decarbonisation prompted by climate change. The energy transition, though, is socially and politically complex, particularly where the transition is felt most viscerally such as in resource-dependent regional communities. In this paper, I explore the social-political dimension of the energy transition in Australia by analysing a specific episode of social-political conflict: a multi-week, moving protest against a large thermal coal mine currently planned for development in Queensland, Australia, Adani Mining's Carmichael Coal Mine. The contestation was related to an ‘Anti-Adani Convoy’ that travelled from the southern-most state of Australia, Tasmania, to the regional Queensland community, Clermont, nearest the proposed mine site in mid-2019. The analysis is grounded in the social psychology tradition of the Social Identity Approach, and applies a model for exploring how social context makes salient certain identities and norms (the Situated Identity Enactment model). Social identity dimensions are explored via qualitative coding of online news media reporting on the Convoy, and from this analysis identity-based insights are drawn regarding the social-political dynamics of the energy transition in Australia. The Convoy experience indicates that regional communities are unlikely to be convinced about the need for the energy transition––or decarbonisation specifically and climate action more broadly––by advocates from afar who adopt tactics that appear as a threat to one group from another group. Instead, the energy transition will be best served by place-based, bottom-up initiatives that are congruent with local identity, values, preferences, and priorities.

Accumulating Minerals and Dispossessing Indigenous Australians: Native Title Recognition as Settler‐Colonialism

AbstractThe changes in regulation of mineral development on Indigenous people's lands, wrought by the advent of native title in Australia, created an impression that the political economy of mining on Indigenous people's lands would be fundamentally transformed. In this paper we argue, in reality, a deeply seated settler‐colonial mentality endures in Australia within the institutions presiding over mineral governance, particularly in those States that are heavily dependent upon resource extraction. Focusing on the governance of mineral development in Queensland, Australia, we offer an analysis of the rationalities that inform the endurance of an inequitable architecture of extractive governance in that State. Our conceptual framework draws on a synthesis of the concepts of “accumulation by dispossession”, “settler colonialism”, and Indigenous critiques of the politics of recognition, to argue that liberal states remain deeply committed to the facilitation of mineral development on Indigenous people's lands in direct contravention to international norms.

Regulating the Pollution of Queensland’s Waterways from Natural Resource Extraction: Potential Pathways to Law Reform Inspired by Recent Chinese Developments in Environmental Law

This research paper critically evaluates the status of natural resources law in Australia in relation to its capacity to disincentivize the capacity for mining and natural resource extraction related activities to pollute essential water sources. This paper articulates the historical development of the law protecting waterways from pollution within Australia and Queensland and identifies the deficiencies in this development. This paper then investigates mechanisms for improving the capacity of the law to incentivize environmentally sound practices from groups that carry out natural resource extraction. This topic warrants investigation due to the vital nature of water for sustainable growth and development in Queensland, particularly with Australia and Queensland’s dependence on waterways such as the Murray-Darling basin for agricultural and ecological sustainability. This paper investigates the complicated relationship between the necessity of water for facilitating mining infrastructure projects such as coal seam gas extraction, alongside the potential for waterways to become polluted through these processes and negatively impact the livelihood of local populations. This research looks toward jurisdictions who have recently made law reform attempts to address similar issues relating to pollutants from mining practices in waterways such as the recent reforms made by the People’s Republic of China. In studying these reforms, this paper critically assesses the capacity for these law reforms to provide solutions to address pollution caused by natural resource extraction in Australian waterways.

Is the gas industry a good neighbour? A comparison of UK and Australia experiences in terms of procedural fairness and distributive justice

Australia and the UK share much in common in their social, governance and legal systems. Would approaches to unconventional oil and gas development also be similar? In this article, we examine the different experiences of local communities regarding unconventional oil and gas development in Queensland, Australia and England, UK. We question whether the onshore gas industry makes a ‘good neighbour’ in two different contexts that share one common legal background. We consider procedural fairness within the context of land access processes and discourses of individual and collective property rights generated by unconventional gas development in each country. Land access policy and practice have developed significantly in Australia to recognise the rights of existing landholders, including Traditional Owners, and in England, to clarify mineral and resource ownership rights. We consider distributive justice within a conceptual framework of social sustainability relating to communities and local social impacts from development. We review how governments at various levels have attempted to resolve such issues. We conclude that the unconventional gas development experience is heavily context dependent and cannot be described by a simple narrative, nor by snap-shot baseline and impact studies. We suggest that there remains much to be learned about regulating the industry.

Modelling homeowners’ reactions to the placement of high voltage overhead transmission lines

ABSTRACTWhat are people’s reactions to news that high voltage overhead transmission lines (HVOTLs) are to be built near their homes? Will they pursue actions which might impact the project or, instead, do nothing and see what happens as due process is followed by its planners? Much could depend on whether the installation is merely in their vicinity or will excise part of their freeholding through land acquisition. This article resolves these issues by applying a staged model of infrastructure development in Queensland, Australia, via a telephone survey of 600 homeowners. Results indicate the statistical significance of certain independent variables relating to interviewees, and of intervening variables represented by their risk perceptions and prevailing attitude to electricity infrastructure. Threatened resumption of property produces distinctly different outcomes from those applying to more distant locations of power lines. Findings should prove relevant to planning authorities contemplating network expansion.

Planning for the supply of more affordable housing: the case of the Queensland Urban Land Development Authority

ABSTRACTUrban planning and the development system are mechanisms that can provide affordable housing and alleviate the cost of housing. This paper explores the use of a specific response to housing affordability and delivery of affordable housing in Queensland through the introduction of a statutory land authority, the Urban Land Development Authority (ULDA). It provides a narrative review of an important time in Queensland’s planning and development history. The introduction of the ULDA was significant as it represents the first time that Queensland planning saw the introduction of planning-related legislation that could require affordable housing. Even more extraordinary was that the deliverables (affordable housing) sat outside the mainstream planning legislation of the time. Additionally, the establishment of the ULDA represents the first statutory land authority responsible for planning and development in Queensland. While similar authorities have been operational in many States since at least 1974, this was never the case in Queensland, but the Queensland response of the ULDA was unique in Australia in terms of its powers and structure. This paper considers that despite such extraordinary powers, the outcomes of the ULDA were not as effective as originally anticipated.

Integrating stakeholder perceptions of environmental risk into conventional management frameworks: coal seam gas development in Queensland

Social opposition to coal seam gas development in Queensland, Australia, reflects a broad and complex array of value-based issues, many of which are poorly represented in the regulatory decision-making process. The Queensland Government's adaptive policy framework for managing coal seam gas development has targeted risks identified through conventional risk management methodologies based solely on technical assessment. This study presents a novel approach to identifying risks during policy development. Socially perceived risks and policy gaps identified in news media are compared against existing policy using a three-phase mixed methodology. Three leverage points for strengthening the current management framework are proposed: (1) integration of policies to address cumulative and overlapping risks; (2) adoption of a prescribed development plan, allowing proactive data collection and impact assessment; and (3) establishment of a detailed, systematic approach for formulating and implementing adaptive policy measures.

Prioritising indicators of cumulative socio-economic impacts to characterise rapid development of onshore gas resources

Rapid development of coal seam gas (CSG) extraction in Australia has been accompanied by significant socioeconomic impacts. Measures of these impacts, which are needed for planning and policy processes, can be captured in terms of indicators. The utility and practicality of using indicators in this way is explored here. This literature review establishes lessons for selecting a salient, credible and manageable suite of indicators that could be monitored to assess the cumulative social and economic impacts of CSG development in Queensland's Western Downs Regional Council local government area. This analysis suggests the process of establishing indicators is itself an exercise in inclusive dialogue and learning that must be focused on adaptation to the local context. It will benefit from collaboration among multiple stakeholders as well as technocratic input; and from applying an integrative, multi-dimensional framework capable of capturing local and regional scales and both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Making such an inclusive, iterative, multi-faceted process manageable with limited resources necessitates a process of prioritising.

Impacts of unconventional gas development on rural community decline

This paper looks at the impact of a new extractive industry, namely unconventional natural gas, on rural decline. Rural decline is defined as comprising loss of rural youth, reduced human capital and increasing rural poverty. Since the start of the current century, the unconventional natural gas industry has been expanding around the world, often in close proximity to pre-existing agricultural communities. The social impacts of this new industry represent a growing area of interest in rural studies. We contribute to this new research area through a case study of coal seam gas (CSG) development in Queensland, Australia, comparing regions where gas development occurred between 2001 and 2011 against a control group of similar regions without gas development. The study eliminated the influence of non-resident workforces by analysing census data based on place of usual residence as well as place of enumeration. A key finding of the study is that regions with CSG development have experienced a growing youth share of the population and, of particular note, a growing female youth share of the population. CSG regions had a higher proportion of youth with university degrees and advanced technical training compared to other rural regions. Poverty reduction was also observed in some specific CSG regions. The extensive spatial footprint of unconventional gas and increased female rural youth populations indicate a diversion from traditional boomtown social impacts observed in previous energy booms. Taken together, the results show signs of mitigating and reversing rural community decline.

Environmental Politics and Policy in Queensland Under Labor, 1998–2012

Environmental issues have been politically salient in Queensland throughout recent decades of Labor dominance. While in general Labor has benefited politically from being regarded as the ‘greener’ of the major parties, state Labor governments have also sometimes found environmental policy difficult to deal with. This is partly a reflection of the political passions that environmental and resource use conflicts can generate and is partly due to the pressures on environmental assets from population and economic growth in Queensland; primarily, however, it reflects the difficulty of reconciling environmental and sustainability policy goals with the historically dominant model of development in Queensland.

Networked InField Compression for CSG field development

Driven by the LNG feed gas volume demand, recent large CSG field development in Queensland has been developed around large centralised compressor stations, designed and constructed on conventional gas project guidelines. Experience in the United States and Canada during more than four decades, however, has shown the best CSG reservoir performances and lifecycle costs are achieved with low capital cost, flexible infrastructure, and infield compression close to well heads. The Networked InField Compression System offers CSG producers significant advantages compared with centralised systems. The model comprises a grid network of well heads; low, intermediate, and high pressure pipelines; integral infield compressors, and booster compression stations. The model differs from traditional models in a number of ways. The majority of wellhead infrastructure and compression is relocated back in the field, reducing costs and inspection requirements. Low horsepower integral infield compressors are gas driven, pipeline losses are reduced and use 30–40 % less BHP than screw compressors, and skid-mounted for simple and cost-effective relocation. Coiled high pressure, low diameter flexible piping is used, which requires a narrow right of way, few connections, and can be ploughed in multiple lines from up to 5–8 km per day, depending on soil conditions.In addition to 30-40 % improvements in capital expenditure and installation time, the Networked InField Compression model offers 20–30 % lower operating costs and 10–20 % more gas from increased flow levels and/or extended well life. Further, environmental impact is decreased by 20–40%, as land use, CO2 emissions; crew sizes and peak water flow are significantly reduced compared with centralised systems.

The Coupling of Art and Government: Dilemmas in Government Commissioned Public Art

In Queensland, Australia, public art, and specifically the public art produced under Art Built-in, has been seen to be dumbed down, with a preference for art in the public domain that is not critically-engaged. The government client-commissioner within the supposedly democratic art-by-committee process often expects the artwork to represent government values and to be content-free and risk-free with the intention of avoiding controversy. With the demise of Art Built-in in 2006, Arts Queensland has put in place a new strategy, art + place. In terms of critically engaged practice in public art, has Queensland public art improved? In this paper, a case study of three recent commissioning phases of the Department of Justice and Attorney General will be undertaken to reflect on the development of Queensland's government public art commissioning methodologies.

Parables of Pacific Shores: Locations, Caves and Coastal Masculinities in Cast Away and Sanctum

If one should imagine a map of production locations for dive films or films set on tropical islands since the 1960s, it would likely show a trend towards the southern hemisphere and more recently towards Queensland.1 Creative industries development in Queensland has been stimulated partly bystate bodies, namely the Pacific Film and Television Commission, and Screen Queensland; and the presence of Warner Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast, and filmmakers have also been attracted more recently by production offsets from Screen Australia. There is dim connection to the classicalgeography of the Antipodes as the underside of the world and a place of monsters.

Tourism Reform, Policy and Development in Queensland, 1989–2011

Tourism has been a major driver of economic and social development in Queensland since the end of World War II. In 2011, tourism's direct contribution to the economy was estimated to be $7.8 billion, and it generated direct employment of an estimated 118,000 full-time equivalent jobs (Queensland Tourism 2011). The multiplier effects of tourism account for another $9.2 billion, making it the most important component of the state's service sector. These figures suggest that the approach adopted by the Labor government over the last two decades to manage and develop Queensland tourism has generally been positive. However, a closer examination of recent trends and criticisms reveals that visitor demand has flat-lined: the industry is struggling under the weight of global and local pressures, investment has slowed, and there are issues of stagnating demand, competitiveness, service quality, industry capacity and innovation. Moreover, Queensland is losing international market share compared with New South Wales and Victoria (Tourism Research Australia 2011). Given that governments have a key role to play in creating and maintaining policy conditions that contribute to both a healthy economy and social well-being, what have been the Queensland Labor government's contributions to tourism, and what are the key challenges into the future?

A pocket full of practice—High fidelity simulation in rural hospitals

Like many other rural emergency departments, Gympie ED has long been aware that it needs enhanced education: not just theory, but practical clinical skills and “real world” simulation. In 2009, the Director, Dr. Jo Deverill approached the Queensland Skills Development Centre (SDC) for support. What ensued was the development of Queensland's first rural Pocket Simulation Centre (PSC). This was a pilot program: Gympie was one of three sites from which Simulation Coordinators (SimCos) were chosen, trained at in High Fidelity Simulation (HFS) and introduced to Crisis Resource Management (CRM) principles.

Celebrating Her First Half-Century

Queensland's Jubilee Carnival of 1909 was, according to Australia's Governor-General, Lord Dudley, ‘the principal and most prominent feature in the series of festivities by which the people of Queensland are seeking to celebrate the jubilee of their existence’. Indeed, with the exception of the Carnival, the ‘series of festivities’ was rather lack-lustre, offering relatively little of substance to excite the attention of contemporaries or of later commentators. Offering a distraction from the political instability of the era – between 1907 and 1909, voters had gone to the state polls three times – the Jubilee Carnival reaffirmed and reinvigorated a story that had been told and retold each year at Brisbane's showgrounds for more than three decades. The particular power of the Carnival did not, therefore, derive from its status as a unique event that commemorated a defining moment in Queensland's development: the separation from New South Wales and the beginning of self-government in 1859. Instead, the significance of the Jubilee Carnival as the centrepiece of the 1909 celebrations depended on its effective alignment with Queensland's largest annual event, the Brisbane Exhibition, and on the resulting connections between the Carnival, the Exhibition and a narrative of successful colonisation that had been celebrated each year since the inaugural Brisbane Exhibition of 1876. For many non-Indigenous Queenslanders, it was a compelling story that resolutely ignored the unsavoury aspects of the state's past and present in favour of an uplifting account of a society in which perseverance, applied to nature's bounty in the interests of the British Empire, was rewarded. It was, above all, a story of progress – that most powerful of talismans for settler societies. The Jubilee Carnival thus reiterated a familiar story; in so doing, it confirmed the iconic status of the capital city's annual agricultural show and positioned the show's host, the National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (NAIAQ), as one of the state's most important organisations.

Teacher professional development as an effect of policy and practice: a Bourdieuian analysis

This article draws on Bourdieu’s field theory and related concepts of habitus and capitals, to explore policy implementation in relation to a particular case of teacher professional development in Queensland, Australia. This implementation process is described as an effect of the interplay between what is called the policy field and the field of teachers’ work. The policy field demonstrates intra‐field tensions between the federal Quality Teacher Programme (QTP) and a raft of state policies, particularly those associated with the Queensland meta‐policy, Queensland State Education 2010 (QSE2010). To investigate the effects of this complex policy ensemble, the article draws upon the experiences of principals and a group of teachers engaged in professional development across a cluster of six schools in south‐east Queensland, Australia. The specific focus is on the ‘Curriculum Board’, a cross‐school body created by the principals in the participating schools, and its mediated work in policy implementation and teacher learning. The article analyses the effects of the involvement of the principals in the creation of the board, the limiting impact of QTP requirements to involve consultants rather than support for teacher release, and the limited influence of the board on teacher learning and policy implementation in the individual schools. By doing so, the analysis shows the disjunctions between the logics of practice of the policy field and that of teachers’ work, and the ways in which the differing habitus of principals and teachers and teacher members of the board affected teacher learning and policy implementation. It is argued that effective implementation requires learning within and across fields, and more reflexive habitus of policy makers, principals and teachers.

Mackay Revisited: The Case of Javanese-Australian Muslims, 1880–1999

The development of Queensland's sugar industry in the nineteenth century led to an influx of non-European laborers, such as Melanesians, Cingalese and Javanese. Years later, under the Immigration Restriction Act, 1901, many Asian people were expelled from Australia, but some Javanese remained in Mackay. This paper examines the Javanese settlement pattern during the colonial, “White Australia,” and multicultural periods in terms of race, ethnicity, culture and religion. These accounts were derived largely from interviews with Australia-born second, third and fourth generation Muslims of Javanese origin in Mackay.

New landscapes of gated communities: Australia's Sovereign Islands

The gated community phenomenon is well entrenched in numerous cities around the world. Stimulated by concerns over eroding public safety and legitimated through a discourse of community civility, gated communities are the physical manifestation of complex social anxieties and aspirations. Typically, gated communities rely upon aggressive mechanisms of exclusion, such as gates and walls that are ‘policed’ by private security guards. However, this need not be the case. Socio-spatial exclusion can be established and maintained through the more subtle, but nonetheless effective, creation of landscapes that are so imbued with a sense of prestige that they arguably initiate a process of ‘self-othering’ amongst those beyond their margins. Here, the Sovereign Islands development in Queensland, Australia is examined to explore how the landscapes of gated communities themselves can be physically and discursively constructed so as to obviate the need for aggressive barriers of exclusion.