CQU researchers are keen to help Queensland avoid ‘Dutch disease’ in the wake of a coal boom which could almost double in intensity over the next 5 years.

The ‘Dutch disease’ phenomenon - named after the 1970s North Sea oil and gas boom - is where a resources boom over-amplifies declines in other sectors.

In the case of Queensland’s Bowen Basin, coal mine growth has caused severe shortages of skilled labour and housing, restricting the growth of other sectors and pricing lower paid workers out of mining communities.

The current boom has also revealed shortcomings in information flows and in planning and approval processes to support new mining developments.

CQU’s Professor in Regional Economic Development John Rolfe heads a 2-year project granted $266,000 by the Australian Coal Association Research Program to examine ‘Regional Social and Economic Impacts of Mining Development in the Bowen Basin’. He is assisted by Dr Stewart Lockie and Galina Ivanova.

 Professor Rolfe said that a key aim for the project was to develop regional models for housing and labour patterns, enabling better predictions to be made about the next phases of the coal boom.

Project outcomes should help to avoid situations where regional and state centres gained most benefits from the boom, while the communities on the coalfields shouldered the burdens.

Photo: Professor John Rolfe