Independent Federal candidate Ellie Smith once infiltrated power station, chained self to equipment in protest

A Climate 200-backed independent attempting to unseat Peter Dutton once broke into a major power station and chained herself to a conveyor belt in an anti-coal protest, it can be revealed.

Dickson’s Independent candidate Ellie Smith running against Peter Dutton. Picture: Liam Kidston

A Climate 200-backed independent attempting to unseat Peter Dutton once chained herself to a major Queensland power station in a five-hour standoff with authorities as part of an anti-coal protest.

Independent candidate for Dickson Ellie Smith, in 2008, broke into Tarong Power Station and attached herself to a coal conveyor belt in an act of civil disobedience that led to the state-owned facility being evacuated.

It also sparked national and state lawmakers to consider beefing up trespassing laws.

The Coalition, in light of Ms Smith’s militant anti-coal activist past, has taken aim at the so-called Teal independent movement as being just as “extreme as the Greens”.

The latest salvo against Ms Smith — this time for her actions as a 24-year-old — comes after the emergence of social media posts from 2013 when she equated an anti-coal activist whose hoax wiped millions from the stock market as a modern day Rosa Parks.

Ms Smith was one of three protesters in 2008 who chained themselves to the main coal-carrying conveyor belt at Tarong Power Station, near Kingaroy, which at the time supplied 25 per cent of Queensland’s power needs.

Authorities, after hours of negotiation, eventually cut Ms Smith out of her thumb and handcuffs using rescue equipment.

An article from 2008 when Ellie Smith and other protesters locked themselves onto a conveyor belt at Tarong Power Station.

She faced court for the incident and was fined $250 and made to serve 90 hours of community service — with no conviction recorded.

Coalition spokesman Senator James Paterson said it was becoming “increasingly evident that Teals” were “just as capable of being as extreme as the Greens”.

“(This) despite their portrayal to their electorate,” he said.

Ms Smith said the Tarong incident happened 17 years ago, when she was a 24-year-old university student.

But she was also firm that her advocacy for communities “and causes that matter to people and improves live” would “never change”.

“Farmers near this power station were concerned about expanding coal mines, their health and the local environment,” she said.

“I now have a family and Dickson is my home. People in Dickson deserve a representative who will stand up for them, not their own ambition or political party.”

Mr Dutton holds the seat of Dickson with the slimmest margin of any MP in Queensland, with a buffer of just 1.7 per cent.

It means the Opposition Leader will be under pressure to shore up his own electorate--- a cluster of outer-suburban mortgage-belt suburbs north of Brisbane — as he attempts to lead the Coalition to a historic election victory.

According to Ms Smith’s team her campaign currently boasts 2500 supporters, including 350 volunteers, as well as 700 individual donors.