2. The Politics of Resource Development in Western Australia

This chapter places the past decade of rapid resource development growth within a longer tradition of developmentalism in Western Australian politics and society and the shift in the 1950s and 1960s to a growth model based on “a commitment to resource development by large-scale private capital undertaking large scale projects with assistance at all stages by State planning” (Layman 1982: 163). The chapter examines whether and to what extent the state has moved on from this development model. It begins with a description of the main features of the model circa 1982, the time of the last resource boom in Western Australia, and the external and internal challenges facing it at that time. It then outlines how the model has evolved and its political ramifications. The chapter finds that there is significant continuity and broad bipartisanship in Western Australian government policy and attitudes towards resource development, although there have been some important changes to how distributional conflicts have been played out, which has had consequences for party politics.