The resource boom's underbelly: Criminological impacts of mining development
| Author | Alison McIntosh,Russell Hogg,Kerry Carrington |
| Published date | 01 December 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865811419068 |
| Date | 01 December 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
44(3) 335–354
The resource boom’s
! The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865811419068
impacts of mining development
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Kerry Carrington
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Russell Hogg
University of New England, Australia
Alison McIntosh
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Abstract
Australia is currently in the midst of a major resources boom. Resultant growing demands for
labour in regional and remote areas have accelerated the recruitment of non-resident workers,
mostly contractors, who work extended block rosters of 12-hour shifts and are accommo-
dated in work camps, often adjacent to established mining towns. Serious social impacts of
these practices, including violence and crime, have generally escaped industry, government and
academic scrutiny. This paper highlights some of these impacts on affected regional communi-
ties and workers and argues that post-industrial mining regimes serve to mask and privatize
these harms and risks, shifting them on to workers, families and communities.
Keywords
corporate harm, masculinity, post-industrial mining regimes, work camps
Introduction
In this article we identify some core features of new post-industrial mining regimes with
a view to examining some of their possible criminological impacts and implications.
The paper is exploratory and conceptual in nature, seeking to link these developments
rather eclectically with four particular theoretical strands in criminology: first, the social
ecology tradition associated with the Chicago School of sociology which studied the ways
in which rapid socio-demographic change affected the structure and dynamics of human
communities (Park and Burgess, 1967 [1925]; Bulmer, 1984); secondly, theorizing around
Corresponding author:
Professor Kerry Carrington, Head of School of Justice, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Gardens
Point Campus, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, 4001, Australia.
Email: Kerry.Carrington@qut.edu.au
336
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 44(3)
gender, masculinity and crime (Naffine, 1997); thirdly, theorizing around corporate harm
and responsibility, a legacy of the Sutherland tradition within criminology; and, finally,
the criminology of risk and neo-liberalism. We begin with a snapshot of the current mining
boom in Australia. We then turn to a consideration of key characteristics of new mining
regimes, and in particular their reliance on new production processes organized around
non-resident labour, before providing a broad socio-demographic profile of affected
mining communities and considering criminological impacts. Dramatic changes in the
social organization of the everyday life of communities and individuals raise some
serious questions, which in turn pose major challenges for public policy and regulation
of corporate harms and responsibilities.
A snapshot of the mining boom
Since the 1960s, Australia has developed into one of the world’s leading mining
nations, although the expansionary trend has been attended by a familiar boom/bust
cycle of fluctuating global commodity prices, conditions and profitability. In the late
1980s energy and mineral resources accounted for over one-third of the nation’s total
exports of goods and services (ABS, 1990). For the subsequent two decades Australia’s
volume of exported resource products grew at an annual rate of around 5 per cent per year
(Grant et al., 2005) and total annual production more than doubled in the 20 years to
2007–08 (ABS, 2010). The resources sector is now the largest contributor to Australia’s
export trade, with a total value of $118.4 billion in 2008–09, a tripling since 2004–05.
The industry’s contributions to total goods exported from Australia increased over the
same four-year period from 32 per cent to 51 per cent (ABS, 2010). The sector, currently
growing at 15 per cent per annum, has capital expenditure of $174 billion associated with
new resource projects at advanced stages of development, with one treasury estimate in
early 2011 suggesting the boom will last until at least 2025 (New et al., 2011). Global
demand, especially from rapidly growing Asian economies, together with improved
methods of extraction, processing and transportation has fuelled this boom.
Current economic returns for the mining corporations and their shareholders are
staggering. Two of the giants announced record profits in early 2011: $10.5 billion for
the half year for BHP Billiton and an annual profit of $14.3 billion for Rio Tinto. The
boom has also produced high incomes for resource sector workers, necessary to attract
local and overseas labour in a tight market. Federal government policies – in areas like
taxation, workplace legislation and immigration – have bowed to the imperative of
resource sector expansion, although there continue to be further, impatient industry
demands to ‘cut red tape’, expand immigration, curtail union power, and so on. The
rush to be rich, to cash in on Australia’s mineral and energy wealth, is leaving many
questions about the broader effects of the resource boom unasked and unanswered in
the public domain.
Murray and Peetz observed of coal mining in Australia: ‘The history of the industry
is tough, at times violent, and always dangerous’ (2010: 8). The statement is no less
applicable to other resource sectors, as, for example, the impact of asbestos mining
demonstrates (Australian Parliament House of Representatives, Standing Committee
on Aboriginal Affairs, 1984; Gunningham, 1989; Hills, 1989; Peacock, 2009). The
forms of danger vary over time and according to context and they are undergoing
Carrington et al.
337
significant change at the present time. We argue the risks under new mining regimes
may be shifting from the workplace to communities, families and individuals. During
this dynamic period of rapid growth, globalization and shifting community expectations,
the industry is restructuring with far-reaching implications, not only for the national
economy, but for regional development, local communities, and mine workers and
their families. The next section summarizes the key characteristics of post-industrial
mining regimes.
Post-industrial mining regimes
The organization of production and employment in the mining industry has been recast
over the last two decades. We use the term ‘post-industrial’ to capture this period of
change and attendant ramifications for the structures of economy, work, family, commu-
nity and governance, involving transition from relative stability and predictability in these
domains of life to increasing uncertainty, insecurity and risk.1 In a short time the mining
sector has gone from being one of the most highly unionized and regulated in Australia to
one now heavily reliant on sub-contractors, precarious employment practices and
industry self-regulation (Murray and Peetz, 2010). Post-industrial mining regimes maxi-
mize resource extraction through continuous production processes organized around
block roster shifts relying increasingly on non-resident, contract labour accommodated
in work camps. It was very different not that long ago.
During the boom of the 1960s and early 1970s, some 25 new mining settlements were
built in various regions of Australia (Houghton, 1993) to accommodate workers and
their families. Governments issued mining leases subject to conditions that companies
build or substantially finance local community infrastructure, including housing, streets,
transport, schools, hospitals and recreation facilities. By 2005 a survey of 100 mines by
the Western Australian Chamber of Minerals and Energy (WACME) reported that only
53 per cent of mining personnel were residential. A combination of social, political and
economic factors saw non-residential workforces become progressively more popular
with mining companies and workers. Roxby Downs, built in the late 1980s, was the last
mining town established in Australia (Storey, 2001). By 1991 more than 40 mining oper-
ations employing a total of about 5,000 workers used predominantly non-residential
workforces, known as fly-in, fly-outs or drive-in, drive-outs (FIFOs/DIDOs) (Gillies
et al., 2001; Storey and Shrimpton, 1991). Initially the practice was mostly confined to
gold mining in Western Australia (Houghton, 1993). By 2000, many types of mining
operations (including iron ore and nickel projects in Western Australia and coal in
Queensland) had adopted non-resident workforce arrangements (Storey, 2001). In 1991
Queensland removed the requirement for companies to provide homes for workers
when developing new mines (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, online, 2006).
In 2006 the most common places of residence of workers in the 12 biggest growth
mining towns in the country were Perth and Brisbane (ABS, 2008).
Widespread changes to working arrangements also include the move by mining
companies to use contractors for not only construction and maintenance but also
mining operations. Western Australian data for 2009 indicate that contractors comprised
56 per cent (around 40,000) of mining personnel. Contractors have represented the major-
ity of this sector’s workers since 2001–02 (Western Australian Department of Mines and
338
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 44(3)
Petroleum (WADMP), 2009). In Queensland the percentage of contractors rose from
6 per cent in 1996 to almost 50 per cent in 2005 (Murray and Peetz, 2010:...
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