regions in transition: changing economic and social drivers john rolfe cquniversity
TRANSCRIPT
Regions in transition: Changing economic and social drivers
John Rolfe
CQUniversity
Acknowledgements
• Research largely funded through the Minerals Future Cluster – a CSIRO Flagship program
• Several researchers involved in projects, particularly:– Professor Stewart Lockie (ANU)– Dr Jill Windle (CQU)– Dr Galina Ivanova (CQU)– Mr Lindsay Greer (CQU)
Dr Delwar Akbar (CQU)
Why the economic and social impacts of this resource boom are different
Issues for discussion– Macro economic effects – Competition between land resources– Regional economic effects uneven– Social Impacts
• Workforce location and commuting • Housing • Community attitudes
A: MACRO ECONOMIC EFFECTS
• Resources boom has significant macro economic effects – Higher exchange rate – Interest rates higher to curb inflation
• Significant impacts on other economic sectors, particularly– Sectors that export (tourism, agriculture,
manufacturing)– Sectors that are subject to competition from
imports (tourism, manufacturing)
Classic case of Dutch Disease
• Dutch Disease occurs when rapid growth in one industry sector causes offsetting losses in other economic sectors
• Typically caused by both – Macro effects (higher exchange rates and interest
rates) – Micro effects (higher prices for skilled labour and
other inputs)
• Need to distinguish between longer term structural adjustment and short term growth pains
B. COMPETITION BETWEEN LAND USES
• Increasing concern over allocation of land – Good agricultural land – Darling Downs in Qld– Rural lifestyle land – Qld and NSW– Cultural heritage – WA– Environment
• Many resources are traded through market systems – Price mechanism used to identify who can generate
highest net benefits
• Cost benefit analysis can be used to capture both private and public benefits and costs
• Land use in Qld in 2010
• Land use by resources industry is 0.09%
• How should land be allocated in the future?
Coal mine case study in Qld
• Medium sized mine in Bowen Basin• 4 Mtpa of coking coal • 16 years of mine life • Footprint to cover 2,030 ha of grazing country
– Major tradeoff in resource use is between using land for cattle production or for coal mining
Annual revenue and costs
Coal generates nearly 200 times the economic return from the land
How does the same analysis apply to Coal Seam Gas in Surat Basin?
– Well footprint of about 60m x 60m (.4ha) when drilling, and 15mx15m (.02ha) post drilling
– assume 1ha/well with pipelines and roads
– At 750m grid spacing, loss of productive land is 1.7%
– Ag. Land prices range from $950/ha to $6000/ha
Australia Pacific LNG example
• Plans to develop up to 10,000 wells in Surat basin over 30 year period– Up 10,000 hectares out of agricultural production
(for 20 years) • At average land price of $3500/ha = $35M in perpetual
lost Ag. profits
• Annual increase in Gross State Product of > $900M in Surat Basin for 30 years
• Assuming 20% of GSP is profit and royalties, PV at 10% discount rate is $1.7B.
• CSG generates > 20 – 40 times economic return of agriculture
• About 100 – 200 times return on grazing
Why the level of protest?
Given the economics of allocating land to CSG in the Surat, why the level of protest?
Three key groups of reasons
1.Distribution effects 2.Social impacts3.Environmental risks
C: UNEVEN ECONOMIC DISTRIBUTION
• Concern is that regional areas will not share in the wealth
• But resource developments + employment + business spending is widespread
• CQU team did assessment of resource expenditure in every LGA in Qld in 2010.
• Results show that there are already large impacts of resource industries across Qld
Salary payments in Queensland LGAs with top ten expenditure areas labelled
Supplier expenditures in Queensland LGAs with top ten expenditure areas labelled
Total addition to Gross Regional Product by LGA
The importance of the resources sector in the Surat
• Employment in 2009/2010– 6.1% of DD region– 11.5% of Maranoa– 4.2% of Toowoomba– 21.6% of Western
Downs
• Job Multipliers– Maranoa – 2.3– Toowoomba – 6.7– Western Downs – 4.3
Distribution of economic impacts
• Increasing share of population growth and economic benefits going to major centres and coastal zones– Home location of workforce and contractors– Spending flows in business supply chain– In Qld, > 50% goes to Brisbane– Increasing economic leakages as wealth increases
and population becomes more mobile
• While regional areas benefit from major projects, only a share is retained– Level of expenditure capture appears to be falling in
mining and smaller communities – Will decline sharply with FIFO and automation
Predicting population changes – conservative
• Assumptions about workforce moving to local areas:
– Central Highlands: 25%– Barcaldine: 5%– Isaac: 15%– Gladstone: 66%
• Assumptions about location of FIFO workers
– Rockhampton: 10%– Mackay: 15%– Bundaberg: 5%– Outside CQ: 70%
D: SOCIAL IMPACTS
• CQU team have been using several novel methods to assess some of the tradeoffs around local development and impacts
• Asking people if they would prefer to give up the income and employment to avoid project impacts
• Asking people how long they plan to live in a community – and how their plans would change if some positive or negative impacts occurred
Reasons why mining employees don’t move to mining towns
Per
cent
25.0%
20.0%
15.0%
10.0%
5.0%
0.0%
The life cycle hypothesis
• Living locally and commuting are options for people at different stages in life cycle
• Young and single – commute
• Young families – live local
• Teenage families – begin to commute
• Empty nesters – commute
What mining employees want - 1Va
riabl
e
Suit family
Regular hours
Block + time off
Get home each day
Increased salary
Not drive each day
Social opportunities
Stimulating job
Not live in work camp
Close to coast
No shift work
Supportive company
Larger centre
variablewise importance
6420-2-4
Married good time guys
What mining employees want - 2V
ari
ab
le
Suit family
Stimulating job
Close to coast
Not live in work camp
Block + time off
Get home each day
No shift work
Regular hours
Larger centre
Not drive each day
Increased salary
Supportive company
Social opportunities
variablewise importance
420-2-4
Empowered single young guys
What mining employees want - 3V
ari
ab
le
Block + time off
Close to coast
Not drive each day
Regular hours
Stimulating job
Suit family
Social opportunities
Increased salary
Larger centre
No shift work
Not live in work camp
Supportive company
Get home each day
variablewise importance
420-2-4
Focused female staffers
The Housing debate
• High housing costs are transmission link between economic pressures and social impacts
• Very difficult to avoid housing shortages with developments – Private investors risk adverse– Time lags with development – Costs and logistics of development– Delays in planning and approval processes
Example of tradeoffs offered to Moranbah community
Question 2: Carefully consider each of the following three options. Suppose options A, B and C were the only options available, which would you choose?
Additional annual costs to your
household
Housing and rental prices
Level of water restrictions
Buffer for mine impacts close to town
Growth in population of 5,000 people
I would choose
Potential Condition in 5 years time (Options A,B and C)
Option A (Expected outcome under current policy pressures)
$0
No change Some for households, town parks and gardens are drier than now
Moderate impacts from noise, vibration and dust
1,000 in housing, 4,000 in workcamps
Option B
$250 ($21/month)
No change None for households, town parks and gardens are drier than now
Slight impacts from noise, vibration and
dust
4,000 in housing, 1,000 in workcamps
Option C
$1,000 ($83/month)
25% increase
None for households, town parks and gardens are greener than
now
Slight impacts from noise, vibration and
dust
1,000 in housing, 4,000 in workcamps
Responses to town development
• Residents in Moranbah will leave up to 2 years earlier if major workcamps in town
• Up to 0.5 year earlier if dust and noise impacts
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
Less than1 year
1-2 years 2-3 years 3-4 years 4-5 years 6-10 years 10-15years
over 15years
Years
A choice experiment on tradeoffs in the Surat
• Surveyed a random sample of Brisbane residents to assess views on:
• Number of jobs created locally (in the Surat Basin) in the mining industry
• Higher housing prices (housing shortages)
• Rising wage costs (labour shortages) in the non mining sector
• More independent monitoring activity and inspections
• How much people pay each year for 5 years (reduced income if mining is slowed)
How people viewed the importance of issues
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Local housing and
accommodation: Higher prices and
shortages
New local employment
opportunities
Rising local wage rates for local business (non
mining)
New local business
opportunities
Pressure on local infrastructure and services
More people spending money
in local communities
Possible environmental impacts even if they are very
uncertain
More job opportunities for
people in Brisbane
total adjusted score % of ranked 1st
Example choice set
Responses can be summarised into 5 groups
-0.2
-0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
*** Ns ns ns ***
class 1 = 24.5%
-0.2
-0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
*** *** *** *** ***
class 2 = 16%
-0.2
-0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
*** *** *** ns ***
class 3 = 20%
-0.2
-0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
** *** * ns ***
class 4 = 17%
-0.2
-0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
*** *** *** *** ***
class 5 = 22.5%
Observations 6258
Cost
Log Likelihood -4814.88
Jobs
AIC 1.5481
Housing
McFadden R sqrd 0.2997
Business
Chi sqrd 4120
Environment
Summary of groups
• Class 1 (24.5%): Environmental concerns but very cost sensitive - only focused on environmental impacts
• Class 2 (16%): Jobs tradeoff - all non-job impacts important, prefer to reduce the negative impacts at the cost of more jobs
• Class 3 (20%): Housing concerns are most important, will trade off jobs for other improvements
• Class 4 (17%): Environmental focus and not cost conscious, will tradeoff against jobs growth
• Class 5 (22.5%): Business wages tradeoff, a balanced tradeoff / compromise between positive and negative impacts apart from business wages which are traded-off in favour of other
Preferences for bans on mining activity in certain areas
66% 67%
34%
71%
41%
9% 11%
30%
8%
17%
14% 14%23%
15%
31%
10% 8% 12% 6% 12%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
prime agricultural land
10km residential areas
20km residential areas
protected high biodiversity on
private land
unprotected high biodiversity
(public or private)
Yes No Not sure Depends on jobs and income from mining activity
Support for distribution of royalty payments
Local region where
generated , 42%
Brisbane + SE Qld , 20%
Rest of Qld, 15%
Qld (no location
preference) , 22%
Recommendations
• Search to maximise the investment and employment benefits & minimise impacts
• Make residential location an open choice– Allow workers to choose between local, DIDO and FIFO
options
• Keep block shifts as short as possible (< 7 days)• Provide as much housing as possible at project start• Make local towns attractive for workforce to live locally
– Pay attention to infrastructure, housing, services, lifestyle
• Foster growth of supply chain in the region