Blockies and Black Soil: The Sociology of CSG Protest in Western Downs

Dr Mark BahnischDirector, FAQ Research

18 July 2012 CSRER, University of Newcastle

Contexts

• CSG: $45 billion investment in Queensland• A ‘sleeper’ issue before the state election on

March 24? ... Ignored or adversarially framed by media

• ‘Lock the Gate’ – since 2010• Ian Hayllor – ‘The gate is already open’• Field research – February 22-25 2012• Coal Seam Gas – Behind the Seams

‘Radicalising the West’? A new paradigm

• ‘Surprising alliances’• Rights and land use• Tactics• The Akubras were thrown down, but all that

happened was 2 minutes on tv• The Katters and homophobia and racism• Not actually an election issue – to the degree

that it would swing votes

Regional contexts

• It’s not just about farmers• Tara, Dalby, Chinchilla• The ‘Blockies’ – “where dysfunctional people

come to become functional”• Keywords – liveability, lifestyle, sustainability,

co-existence• But how does a conservative social formation

respond?

Post the election

• Regional plans as opposed to ‘strategic cropping’, $ for regions

• Dismantling DERM• ‘Social licence’ - ?• Land and Water Commissioner• The Blockies will die in the ditch for the Black Soil

farmers, but they are out of the game• Community? Social policy?• Don’t forget the Labor frame...• Science as intervention

Nodes of contestation

• John Mathison, KAP Candidate for Condamine – “first they fight on the economy, then on the science, then on the law”

• In what way is this a new politics? Is it a new politics?

• Organised or putatively organised around a relation to nature rather than around relations of production

• But that discourse cannot ground a politics

Big hats, DIDO, neo-liberals and neo-liberals on bikes

• Cr Ray Brown – lifestyle/liveability not invariant• Science and folk science• Is this a debate within neo-liberalism, neo-liberals with

big hats and neo-liberals on bikes?• The arbitral model individualised – and the native title

model ‘last man standing’• Indigenous Economics/Science/Law• Where is ‘home’ for the DIDOs?• Different modalities of temporality, governing from a

smaller distance