By Andrea Walton, Rod McCrea and Rosemary Leonard from CSIRO
How do people feel about coal seam gas (CSG) in the regions where the industry is active? In 2014 we surveyed residents in Queensland’s Western Downs region at the end of a major construction phase.
According to our new survey, now that the industry has started operating, Western Downs residents have maintained their moderate or lukewarm views towards CSG. And even though overall community wellbeing remained similar, some aspects declined and some improved.
There was no single community view towards CSG, with 68 per cent saying they either “tolerated” or “accepted” it.
A minority (19 per cent) “approved” or “embraced” it and a smaller minority (13 per cent) “rejected” CSG. Even though most people have a moderate or lukewarm view towards CSG development, the 2016 survey showed that on average there was a tendency towards more negative views than in 2014.
While around half of residents thought their communities were resisting or struggling to adapt to changes (51 per cent), the other half (49 per cent) thought their communities were “adapting to changes” or “changing into something different but better”. This is similar to how residents perceived their communities back in 2014.
However, there were pockets across the region where considerable proportions of residents indicated their community was “resisting” or “only just coping”.
Nevertheless, residents’ perceptions of their overall community wellbeing in the Western Downs region was favourable and remained relatively unchanged when measured in 2014 and 2016. This meant that residents still thought that their community was a good place to live overall.
Towns surveyed in inland Queensland
In our 2014 survey, we conducted a telephone survey asking 400 people living in and around the towns of Chinchilla, Dalby, Miles and Tara about their attitudes to CSG, as well as their opinions on the wellbeing and resilience of their communities.
This time we surveyed 500 people, as we also included 100 residents from the eastern Maranoa region for comparison, an area next to the Western Downs region which has had CSG wells since the mid-1990s and has less intensively-cropped farming land. It includes the towns of Roma, Injune, Surat and surrounding areas.
In both the 2014 and 2016 surveys people had mixed feelings towards CSG development. However, attitudes tended to be slightly more negative in 2016 compared to 2014 (see figure below).
Slightly more negative attitudes
Attitude toward CSG development. There was a tendency for attitudes towards CSG development to shift to the left between 2014 and 2016
Residents’ overall feelings toward CSG development in the region like being angry, worried, pleased or optimistic also became more negative in 2016.
They declined from 3.0 out of 5 in 2014, which reflected a neutral feeling on average, to 2.8, or feeling slightly negative on average, in 2016. However, over 10 per cent of residents had extremely negative feelings toward CSG in both 2014 and 2016.
These differences likely reflect people’s previous experiences and current situations, individual needs and wants, and personal world views and beliefs around gas development. They include perceptions of community functioning, environmental management, trust and fairness.
When asked about how they saw their communities responding to change, only half (49 per cent) thought their communities were “adapting to changes” or “changing into something different but better”, which is similar to how residents viewed their communities back in 2014.
Creating a positive future
Overall community wellbeing in the Western Downs region was favourable, but wellbeing in the neighbouring eastern Maranoa region was higher than in the Western Downs. This suggests that while overall community wellbeing in the Western Downs region is robust, it can also be improved.
The biggest change in wellbeing from 2014 was the decrease in satisfaction in relation to jobs and employment opportunities, and the biggest improvements were in roads and the quality of the environment (e.g. dust and noise).
Perceived management of the environment for the future also improved. However, residents were still dissatisfied on average with the management of groundwater in the region.
Community wellbeing dimensions. Scores: 1 = lowest and 5 = highest; scores below 3 indicate dissatisfaction and scores above 3 indicate satisfaction. * indicates a significant difference between 2014 and 2016
This report offers a valuable snapshot of the range of views that exist in a CSG community and how these have changed over time.
It highlights four key drivers for people to view their community as a great place to live:
- The level of services and facilities
- The social aspects of community life
- Feelings of personal safety
- Employment and business opportunities
How can we help people cope with and adapt to CSG development? We identified several factors, including good planning and leadership, access to relevant information, trust, being listened to, and employment and business opportunities.
Other key drivers include good environmental management for the future, community commitment, and working together with government and industry to address problems and make the most of opportunities.
Making sure key aspects of community wellbeing remain strong, as well as improving processes for responding to changes associated with CSG development, will drive a sense of optimism and confidence about the future of these communities and others.