Us versus them: The angry and unpredictable politics of north Queensland

Behind a bar in Yeppoon, not far from Rockhampton, business owner Tanya Lynch is talking about Fraser Anning. She is still upset about the criticism he copped from her local Liberal National MP Michelle Landry.

After Anning's infamous comments on the Christchurch massacre, Landry wrote a Facebook post calling the far-right senator a "disgrace" who shouldn't be in Parliament. Lynch barely knows anything about Anning but was "really disappointed" by Landry's post.

An electronic billboard in the middle of Rockhampton raises the spectre of Julia Gillard and Bob Brown.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

"It lowers [my] opinion of her when she slags other people off," she says. "I think over the years that's all [politics] has become. It doesn't teach society to be mindful and considerate of other people. With our youth, if our leaders are doing this behaviour, it just opens up the door for everybody to go, 'it's OK to slag everybody off'. But it's not OK."

Welcome to the politics of north Queensland, marked by an undercurrent of anger, a deep suspicion of politicians' motives and a palpable sense that the rest of Australia is the enemy.

This part of the state, littered with coal mines and aluminium refineries and heavy industry, regards itself as the workhorse of the country. But it feels under siege from outsiders, even those in Brisbane who, according to locals, control policy from afar without understanding the area's needs.

With marginal mining-dependent seats like Herbert, Capricornia, Flynn and Dawson very much in play at this election, the stakes could not be higher. And in the middle of a high-octane campaign, many believe the anti-Adani, anti-coal protests by environmentalists from down south will have a ruinous effect on Labor's attempt to win these knife-edge seats.

Doubt persists about Labor's support for the Adani project and other mines in the Galilee Basin, despite the assurances of local MPs and candidates. There is a pervasive belief that Labor is in bed with the Greens, who polled just 2.8 per cent in the seat of Flynn in 2016.

The Coalition is doing what it can to milk that sentiment. In the centre of Rockhampton, a giant electronic billboard features an image of former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard shaking hands with Dr Brown. "Never forget Bob Brown's Greens and Shorten's Labor sold out CQ jobs," it screams to passing drivers.

Sitting in his Bundaberg office, Coalition MP Keith Pitt hopes the Stop Adani movement will bless Queensland with its presence again before polling day.

"Bob Brown, he should come back. Bring his convoy another couple of times. I think that has been fantastic for us on our side of politics," Pitt enthuses.

"If you want to arc up regional Queenslanders, send a fleet up from Melbourne and tell us what it is we will and won't do and why we can't have a job."

Mud will stick

"Bob Brown has just sealed it": Labor voter Luke Notley is betting on George Christensen to win Dawson.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Many rusted-on Labor voters agree. Further up the coast, at the Caneland shopping centre in Mackay, Luke Notley is trying to whack a bet on George Christensen retaining his marginal seat of Dawson. It is the day after the Clermont protests and Notley, a Labor man, now sees the result as a fait accompli.

"Bob Brown's just sealed it," he says. "It sticks in people’s craw. This place drove Australia's economy. And those guys have taken time off from their barista jobs and unemployment to drive up here in fuel-guzzling cars. I just think it's an insult, a slap in the face."

Privately, some Labor figures bemoan the Stop Adani convoy as a major hinderance to their cause. Publicly, they insist any impact is the result of LNP scaremongering, and point to Bill Shorten's promise Labor would not review any of Adani's environmental approvals.

Russell Robertson, a third generation coal miner and Labor's CFMEU-backed candidate for Capricornia, was born in Clermont, a major mining hub of about 3000 permanent residents north-west of Rockhampton. It was also where he took his first proper coal job.

Labor candidate Russell Robertson, a third generation coal miner, went to Clermont to join pro-mining protests.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Robertson says some of the mud thrown by the LNP and the Greens will stick. But he argues the Coalition's own divisions on coal are underplayed: Peter Dutton, for example, doesn't think the government should fund a new coal-fired power station, while Brisbane MP Trevor Evans has resisted pledging his support for Adani.

"They've got this civil war going on where the Liberals are trying to save their inner-city seats and the Nats are trying to save their rural seats," says Robertson.

The 46-year-old returned to Clermont last weekend to stand with his mates against the Stop Adani protesters, who met a hostile reception from locals. Dozens lined the streets yelling "go home", while shop owners refused service to the out-of-towners. One man was charged after he allegedly rode his horse into a 61-year-old woman, who was taken to hospital.

The protests drew a who's who from the messy pool of Queensland federal politics: Pauline Hanson, Clive Palmer, Matt Canavan, Malcolm Roberts and a chorus of others. Because it's not just about coal, of course - it's about what coal represents: jobs.

Rank hypocrisy

"I'm pretty cranky about it": Apprentice diesel mechanic Tom Stevens at work in Rockhampton.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Tom Stevens owes his job to coal. The 20-year-old apprentice diesel mechanic helps repair mining equipment in Rockhampton, a city where employment is dominated by industries connected to the mines that litter central Queensland to its west.

Like so many of his colleagues, neighbours and friends, Stevens is livid about southerners travelling to his neck of the woods and telling him what to do.

"I’m pretty cranky about it," he says. "They come from 2000 kilometres away, they come up here and they try and show us it's all green. But up here, coal is our economy. It's basically everything."

Stevens' boss Jack Trenaman, the owner of Rockhampton's Central Queensland Equipment, went to Clermont to put the "greenies" in their place. He accuses them of rank hypocrisy.

Jack Trenaman, owner of a major mining equipment firm, accuses anti-Adani protesters of hypocrisy.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

"They don't want to follow it in Melbourne. If you look at the carbon footprint down there - and I don't believe in any of that carbon footprint stuff - if you look at the volumes of people there with concrete and asphalt and electricity and apartments, compared to the people in Clermont ... f--- me, mate, it's nothing close," says Trenaman.

"But they're trying to tell these small communities that we're going to stop your industry by 2030. It would be like the regional towns going to Melbourne and saying: we're going to shut your freeways off by 2030."

Trenaman boasts about leaving "greenies" speechless when he confronts them on policy. He says there is simply no technology that will replicate the production of steel, copper and aluminium without coal. He is particularly cynical about renewables like solar and wind.

"They're not renewable, mate. You can't make a solar panel with another solar panel, you can't make a wind generator with another wind generator. You still need to mine coal, iron ore, copper ore, bauxite and manufacture them with diesel-powered mining equipment."

The coalface: Gladstone's NRG coal-fired power station is the largest in Queensland.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

You will lose friends

Sitting in a cafe in Gladstone, whose port ships about 70 million tonnes of coal each year, Anna Hitchcock is familiar with all these arguments. As co-ordinator of the Gladstone Conservation Council, she is leading a quiet resistance against fossil fuels in a city whose existence depends entirely on them.

Hitchcock has a small army of volunteers, but many of them refuse to put their name to things, appear on email lists or click "going" on Facebook events for fear of retribution.

"It's kind of underground, the environment movement here," she says. "The reality is if you stand up and say something, you might not lose your job but you definitely will lose friends and possibly family, because what you're doing is you're threatening people's livelihoods."

Leader of the "underground" resistance: Gladstone Conservation Council co-ordinator Anna Hitchcock.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Hitchcock says there is no technological barrier to Gladstone exporting renewables instead of coal. She argues there has not been sufficient leadership from any corner of politics to show people they will be better off making the transition than fighting it.

At the same time, Hitchcock concedes the transition will hit the region's poorest the hardest - and she understands why so many north Queenslanders despise protesters from down south.

"I'm not that sort of greenie, I don't lock myself on to things," she laughs. "I'm not surprised there was a little bit of conflict. We get told all the time from outside what to do. The politicians sit in Brisbane - they've got no idea."

It's the same sentiment expressed by Len Shaxson, 74, and Dulcie Brennan, 82, from their front yard in Bundaberg where they sell honey to passersby and collect garden ornaments.

Labor voters Len Shaxson and Dulcie Brennan think modern politicians bicker too much and "are all the same".Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

They've voted Labor all their lives and always will, but they're no longer enthused about it.

"They're worse than children, aren’t they?" says Brennan, a retired hospital domestic. "They're worse than kids the way they bicker and argue all the time. They're all the same."

Outside the bubble

Local MPs know they need to set themselves apart from the so-called Canberra bubble to win over voters in this part of the country. The anti-politics sentiment is particularly strong here, evidenced by continued support for minor parties such as Hanson's and, now, Palmer's.

"I got smashed, absolutely smashed": LNP MP Michelle Landry copped it for criticising Fraser Anning.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Landry, for example, says she was inundated with complaints about her Fraser Anning post - so much so that she took it down after about an hour. She was gobsmacked by the vitriol.

"I got smashed, absolutely smashed. Really personal, horrible attacks calling me everything under the sun ... and personal messages from people that I knew," she says over breakfast in her hometown of Yeppoon.

"When you're in an electorate as marginal as this, I try not to get myself involved in that. But sometimes I just have to have my say about these things."

As a member of the Nationals party room, Landry was not part of last year's leadership coup to remove Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister. But she believes the result - Scott Morrison - gives her a better shot at holding her very marginal seat of Capricornia.

"People up here were cranky when Tony [Abbott] got the flick," she says. "They liked Tony and they didn’t like Turnbull, but they do like Scott."

Whatever his policies, north Queenslanders could not get past the fact Turnbull was a former merchant banker living in a harbourside mansion in Sydney.

"They thought that he wasn't in touch with the average person, because they thought he had too much money," Landry says.

"People like Scott because he's very grounded, he's down-to-earth, he's a family man. This is quite a conservative area, a lot of people like the fact that he goes to church and all the rest."

Testing this hypothesis proves difficult at a pre-poll centre in Rockhampton during the week because most voters are reluctant to share their views. But the two Coalition voters happy to talk are no fans of Morrison.

"He doesn't float my boat," says one, 54-year-old Jackie, minutes after voting for Landry. She didn't think much of Turnbull either.

"I think if anyone should have got in, Julie Bishop should have. I just feel she was probably the person for the job at that time. I'm not overly keen on the ousting of the person at the top and we seem to be very good at doing that."

By Friday afternoon, the Stop Adani convoy had long left Queensland, though protesters were keeping up the fight by protesting outside Liberal MP Trevor Evans' office in central Brisbane.

Bob Brown says the convoy was a success and received a "terrific reception" in the tourist town of Airlie Beach, where operators voiced their concerns about the threat to the Great Barrier Reef and the tourism industry if the Galilee Basin is opened.

Nor is Brown bothered by claims the convoy was damaging to Labor. "It's not. They need to get off the fence themselves and tackle climate change as the threat that it is," he says.

"We are not threatening jobs in the industry with Stop Adani - because the mine's not up. We're saying don’t get it going. You can vote for new coal mines or you can vote for your kids, but you can’t vote for both."