Independent Alex Dyson takes on Liberal Dan Tehan in Wannon

Liberal Dan Tehan is in the fight of his political life to retain Wannon. Here’s the mood on the streets and at the footy ovals in the Victorian electorate.

On Portland’s main drag, overlooking one of Australia’s busiest export ports, former radio presenter Alex Dyson gets plenty of recognition.

Dressed in typical Portland streetwear – a flannel and workboots – the 36 year old turns heads. Which isn’t surprising – he has raised more $1.1 million in donations for his third go at the Wannon electorate, a Liberal stronghold in western Victoria for seven decades. With the margin successfully whittled down to just 3.8 per cent, it’s within Dyson’s reach.

Some look curious, others sceptical, but few approach to speak to him.

Dyson says he gets it: “I’d prefer to be talking about footy instead of politics.” But if locals like him didn’t “roll up their sleeves and get involved”, it would be “left to the big end of town” to make decisions, he says.

Two locals game enough to approach are school boys on bikes.

“Are you Alex Dyson?” one calls. “Yes mate,” he replies, and asks what politicians could do to help.

The boys aren’t sure, so Dyson ventures an idea, asking if they like basketball, and if a new stadium would be good.

“Yeah,” they chorus, giving the candidate a big smile as they take off up the footpath.

Wannon candidate Alex Dyson speaks with school kids on the street in Portland during the election campaign. Picture: Kate Dowler

Walking with The Weekly Times, Dyson says his greatest strength and weakness is he doesn’t know a lot about the industries that form the backbone of the Wannon economy, like agriculture. A strength, because he is a good listener – that good, he likens himself to an obedient dog.

The kelpie is a Dyson campaign mascot, screwed to front gates of his supporters’ homes.

Why the kelpie? Dyson says he was born in Wannon, like the Kelpie hailing from Warrock, and unlike the Liberal incumbent Dan Tehan, who moved to the electorate when preselected.

“And a kelpie does what the farmer tells him,” Dyson says.

Will he really? “I wouldn’t be a very good representative of Wannon if I didn’t listen to the farmers,” Dyson replies.

But with conflicting views on energy policy rife in Wannon – both a big producer and a big consumer with Portland’s aluminium smelter – representing that diversity is a challenge.

Dyson says he agrees with energy infrastructure commissioner Tony Mahar’s view prime agricultural land should be protected, and wonders if wind farms would be better off on “marginal land”. Defining “marginal” land might be tricky in one of the nation’s most productive farming regions.

He won’t say whether he would support offshore wind farms, however, saying again he would consult with constituents.

When asked how he can be independent and listen to the local community on energy when he has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Climate 200, he says he would advocate for localised benefits from energy projects.

“I think the fact that I’m honest and open with my donations show that and this is the thing; Climate 200 is not a person,” he says. “It is 13,000 different Australians who are sick of the lack of integrity of parliament and have donated to it.

“I was happy to take crowd-funding money to help get a better deal from my area, and cop whatever criticisms comes with that by living my true values of openness, honesty.”

Mood for change

At an overcast Thursday evening footy and netball training, Dan Tehan treks down to Irrewillipe in the south east of the sprawling 34,270sq km electorate to make a promise.

If the Liberals gain power, there will be $450,000 for female change rooms and facilities.

The pledge is welcomed by those having a can or waiting on the BBQ tea. But like many areas in the electorate, there is a feeling that rural areas have missed out on their share of government funds.

This is deep in dairy country. A stray footy bounces into neighbouring paddocks, thin on feed – the impact of the drought cruelling southern Australia’s autumn.

Rough roads have led a few dozen dusty 4WD to the oval. Roads is the first thing locals bring up, but they quickly point the finger at state Labor government.

In the kitchen two women say their truck driver husbands carry the cost of this.

“We get pinged for not having roadworthy vehicles, when it is the unworthy roads destroying our trucks,” one says.

Colac-Otway councillor Jason Schram, in his third term as mayor, said Tehan’s pledge was “great”: “We’ve had no other commitments from any of the other candidates, we’ve been completely ignored”

“An independent can’t have much impact, they aren’t able to form government, so how can they promise to spend taxpayers money when they don’t have control of the book,” he says.

Others around the club express fatigue with the heavy advertising plugged into the electorate.

While Dyson’s campaign has undoubtedly been given a massive leg up by Climate 200, it has also benefited from $100,000 from Hamilton farmers Mark Wootton and Eve Kantor.

Wootton says a hung parliament would be a “godsend for Wannon”, and would put a successful Dyson in a “very strong negotiating position”.

Wannon MP Dan Tehan and Nutrien's Kieran Johnston at a recent Mortlake sale. Picture Kate Dowler

Further north, former Southern Grampians mayor and Tahara Bridge farmer Howard Templeton describes Tehan as the “best member we have had”.

“He delivered $3bn to Wannon since he has been in and as a farmer, I’m reminded of when he was trade minister and he did the deal on beef and sheepmeat with the UK, which gives us more market access which is so important in this current trade climate with the US bringing in tariffs,” Templeton says.

“A Teal candidate can’t deliver a trade agreement; if you aren’t in government you can’t achieve those sorts of things.”

Tehan told The Weekly Times his priorities for Wannon’s ag industries were to develop and grow water supplies and delivery, and ensure critically important access to overseas markets.

On the energy transition, he singled out the Coalition’s gas reservation policy for the east coast as a key way local dairy and meat processing industries could have access to “cheap, reliable and affordable gas”.

Back on the street in Portland, a retailer says the seat could no longer be taken for granted.

But, she wonders if backing an independent was gambling.

“You don’t know how they will vote in the parliament,” she said. “Dyson will have a big problem if he sides with the Greens, he’d be a one-term wonder.”