THE GasFields Commission hosted a leaders' breakfast in Roma this week to discuss recent trends and experiences across the business community in relation to gas industry activity.

The commission, alongside chamber of commerce delegates and major stakeholders, listened to current concerns raised by the business community and local government, and shared ideas to build self-reliant communities and how the commission can help to achieve this.

Dr Kathy Witt presented her research findings on the impacts and benefits of CSG in communities, while CSIRO's Dan O'Sullivan highlighted projections of the social and economic impacts and indications of CSG development in the Surat Basin and the implications for local business.

Professor Will Rifkin discussed the resilience capabilities of small businesses in regional Queensland.

"With boom towns, once a boom town has been through one boom, it copes much better with the next one because people who can't cope, leave; and those who stay, learn,” he said.

"People can deal with good fortune and bad fortune - what drives them up the wall is uncertainty.

"Once they have some expectation of outcomes, they can deal with it.”

Chinchilla community, commerce and industry president Rob Hart said stabilising the boom and bust of housing would help to solve many underlying issues in the region.

"If there's one key message that I could get across from a town perspective to demonstrate to the CSG guys is that, if you can help us solve the housing issue with more people locally and hence bringing normality to rent and house prices, you will fix many other things in town and you will have very happy campers,” he said.