The development of environmental administration in Queensland and Western Australia: Why are they different?

Western Australia and Queensland are often seen as the most developmentalis t states in the Australian federation, largely because they remained less d eveloped for longer and have seen much mineral and agricultural development in the latter part of the twentieth century. Developmentalism is usually s een as anathema to a commitment to environmental policy, which most states have taken on in response to environmentalism in the same period, yet these two developmentalist states exhibit markedly different trajectories in res ponse to this environmentalist stimulus. This paper explores the reasons fo r these differences, finding a variety of causal factors including both soc ioeconomic influences (such as affluence and demographics), political struc tures, and personalities and the force of ideas. It suggests that we should be wary of monocausal explanations of such differences.