Australia's Coal Seam Gas Debate: Perspectives across Time, Space, Law and Selected Professions

Abstract

Coal seam gas (CSG) extraction is a source of ongoing controversy in the Australian States of New South Wales and Queensland. Primarily composed of methane, CSG has evolved from a gas extracted in the interests of coal miner safety, to a profitable concern, source of electricity generation and, arguably, a transition fuel in a carbon-constrained future. Efforts to develop Australia’s CSG industry since the early 2000s has brought the sector into increased geographical proximity with existing land uses. Arguments over CSG and its potential risks and benefits remain ongoing, yet the nation’s CSG debate often lacks historical context, geographical insights, justice research perspectives and viewpoints from key professionals associated with this resource. This thesis therefore poses the overarching question: how can environmental history, legal geography, procedural and distributive justice, and profession-specific insights from lawyers, judges and planners, shed light upon this controversial resource?

Drawing on a typology of relevance for environmental history, current CSG land access conflicts in Queensland are contextualised within past efforts in that State to promote coexistence between grain growers and coal miners, comparing the State’s statutorily enshrined Land Access Code 2010 with a voluntary Explorer-Landholder Procedures Guide produced in 1982 by agricultural and mining stakeholders. Building on this temporal aspect of formal and informal land access agreements, a legal geography lens is taken to unconventional gas in Australia, highlighting its value as a tool for investigating CSG – particularly for investigating the involvement of lawyers and judges in land use disputes.

Acknowledging that lawyers are multifaceted participants in Australia’s CSG discussion, an extended study of their participation in recorded community forums in Queensland and New South Wales demonstrates this profession’s significant role in informing community forum audiences about land access laws concerning CSG, while also critiquing these laws by referring to personal experiences with the legal process. Viewpoints from judges associated with CSG-related litigation were also sought out and framed by both legal geography and procedural and distributive justice. An examination of a selection of court judgments concerning CSG revealed that procedural and distributive justice issues have arisen in New South Wales and Queensland. These judgments attend to the place of Australian local governments in negotiations with CSG operators, the provision of accurate mapping information to landholders by CSG companies and the nature of effective engagement in community consultation. Judges were also shown to engage with geographical concepts in their rulings, namely scale.

Finally, this thesis examines planners in Australia’s CSG controversy. Advancing research into the roles and self-perceptions of planners through interviews with planners in New South Wales and Queensland and related documentary sources, these professionals were found to be flexible in their approach to the industry, adopting community advocate, facilitator of development and social gatekeeper roles as needed. The discussion and findings of this research pose important questions about CSG and the multifaceted impacts of this unconventional fossil fuel – stressing the utility of analysis that is informed by space, law, history, justice and the expertise of professionals. Show more