Katy McCallum, a One Nation candidate and National Rational Energy Network vice-chair, is one of the loudest campaigners against the renewable energy rollout. Photograph: Krystle Wright/The Guardian
“Where do you think we are going to be in another 10 years if there’s no farms left, what are we going to eat?” McCallum tells the gathering at Kilcoy, a small town 85km north-west of Brisbane. “We’re going to be starving,” replies someone from the crowd. “Some are outright against it, others are of the opinion that if we can’t stop it, let the money roll in,” he says.About 70km away from Kilkivan, in the town of Kingaroy, the pensioner Karen Mansbridge is crying in her living room. “I want to get out,” she says. “But I can’t, I’m stuck here, it’s keeping me here.”Rural lifestyle blocks like hers are in high demand and should sell within 30 days.
One Nation has already recruited McCallum, who has been preselected as its candidate for Gympie. This was not disclosed at the Kilcoy meeting.Distant storm clouds obscure the view of the Coopers Gap windfarm from the second storey of Kevin White’s Kingaroy home. It is one of two windfarms west of town, with more proposed.Photograph: Krystle Wright/The Guardian
Facebook is a key recruiting ground for Nren. Willmott’s community presentation includes a survey conducted by Nren and Property Rights Australia that was distributed through anti-renewable groups on the social media platform, and is an effective census on its members: just 13% of respondents were 44 years old or under and the most common occupation selected was retired.Further down the Wide Bay Highway is Jo Schembri and Jim Mewburn’s cattle property.
Down the road from Allora, in Greymare, a fight is brewing between farmers who are interested in playing host to a windfarm – which would earn them about $40,000 per turbine a year – and the owners of small hobby farms which are too small to host a turbine. No project has been approved for the area, but that has not stopped the vitriol.