Union is an absolute joke in this country and who ever is managing it and the board need to be fired and replaced with people who don't have their head up their ass.

Apparently their is some international event going on the moment,.not that younwould know about it unless you are a born and bread union fanatic.

Union has a massive cultural problem. Unless you are a private school boy or Kiwi, you have no exposure to it. Unless you have private cable tv or subscription, you want ever see it on tv. It doesn't in anyway connect with the average Australian anymore.

Police are investigating whether cannibalism was a factor in the “extremely confronting” death on the Central Coast on Saturday of a four-year-old boy whose mother has been charged with murder.

A 32-year-old woman arrived at Wyong Police Station of her own accord on Saturday afternoon, leading officers to quickly form grave concerns about the safety of a child.

Following the woman’s arrival at the station, police conducted a welfare check at a unit on Byron Street in Wyong. They found the body of her son with significant arm injuries.

The Herald is prohibited from identifying the boy or the mother under laws protecting the identities of child victims of crime.

“I’m prepared to say publicly at the moment, it was an extremely confronting scene,” Superintendent Chad Gillies from Tuggerah Lakes police said at a press conference on Sunday morning.

Police sources not authorised to speak publicly on Sunday said officers were investigating whether cannibalism was involved in the preschooler’s death.

The coroner will conduct a post-mortem in the coming days to determine the cause of death.

The woman, who was previously known to police, was arrested at the police station and charged on Sunday morning with murder (domestic violence).

Neighbours who didn’t want to be named told reporters on Sunday that they had never seen anything untoward between the mother and son.

“[The boy] was all happy; seen him walking the dog and walking up and down the street. He was very energetic,” said a man who had previously done work on the woman’s car.

“[The boy] goes ‘Oh you’re working on mum’s car, has she broken it again?’. He was happy. We couldn’t see any signs of anything,” the man said.

The duo had moved into the rental earlier this year, a neighbour said, allegedly following domestic violence between the woman and an ex-partner.

When a number of police arrived at the complex on Saturday afternoon, “We had a fair idea it was something to do with [the woman] because they went straight into her house, but no idea it would have anything to do with her child.”

Neighbours are in shock, he said.

“We’re all up in arms. What happened?”

Police have established a crime scene and Tuggerah Lakes detectives are investigating the incident alongside the homicide squad.

“It’s a shocking situation,” said another neighbour who did not want to be named.

On Sunday afternoon, two young constables from Wyong Station and police tape surrounding the home were the only signs that something was badly wrong on the quiet street of timber and brick homes set back on wide lawns.

“We heard the sirens in the evening. We didn’t realise it was our neighbour or that anyone could be capable of something so brutal,” said another Byron Street resident.

Investigators have seized the woman’s vehicle for forensic analysis and removed a number of items from the crime scene for analysis.

“Whenever a child is a victim of violent crime, and whenever a child is murdered, it strikes at the core of community,” Gillies said.

“That’s why it’s absolutely important to work through this methodically. We try to understand what’s happened, why it’s happened, and from my perspective, we owe that to that little boy to make sure that we get the exact circumstances and present them to the court in due course.”

The woman faced the bail division court on Sunday, where she did not apply for bail, and it was formally refused. She will next face court in September.

Our move is perfectly rational in economic terms. But there is another reason for leaving, one that is more difficult to say out loud.

Louise Perry

The Wall Street Journal

July 3, 2026 - 5:00AM

The Last of England is an 1855 painting by Ford Madox Brown that depicts a family leaving Britain for Australia. The white cliffs of Dover disappear behind them, but they don’t look back. The eyes of the mother and father are fixed ahead, their expressions stony. The woman holds the tiny hand of a baby who is tucked beneath her shawl, while her other hand is held by her husband. Voted one of Britain’s greatest paintings in a 2005 poll run by BBC Radio 4, The Last of England expresses a painful relationship with the mother country – a place to run from, and to grieve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ford_Madox_Brown_-_The_Last_of_England_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Some of my ancestors underwent a journey much like this, leaving Britain for Australia during the gold rush of the 1850s. I made the same journey last week with my husband and our two little boys. Our experience was a whole lot easier than that of the past. The flight is lengthy and unpleasant, but nothing like a weeks-long journey by ship. Still, the expressions on the faces of Madox Brown’s subjects made sense to me. In the months leading up to our departure, a lot of people asked if we were feeling “excited” and the answer I always gave was “no”.

As we said goodbye to the country of my birth, I felt bitter and heartbroken. Not because I don’t want to live in Australia – a beautiful country, and my other home – but because I never planned on leaving Britain. So if we’re not “excited” about our move, then why did we do it? This is an awkward question to answer in casual conversation. A lot of British émigrés complain about fleeing the bad weather, but it isn’t obvious to me that the blasting heat of an Australian summer is necessarily preferable to British drizzle. And while the other standard push-and-pull factors do apply to us, they don’t tell the whole story.

It’s certainly true that healthcare is better in Australia, and salaries are higher, since Australia is now a significantly richer country than Britain, the two countries having diverged following the 2008 financial crisis. Britain used to be the aspirational destination for ambitious young Australians – including my parents – but that is no longer true, and Australia has been merrily brain-draining Britain for some time now. Our move is perfectly rational in economic terms.

But there is another reason for leaving, one that is more difficult to say out loud. I’m not only unhappy with how things are right now in Britain, I’m worried that they’re set to get a whole lot worse. I started thinking seriously about leaving Britain in 2024, spurred by two things: my direct experience of the dire state of NHS maternity services, and my unease about the rise of Muslim sectarianism in politics. This was the year in which the “Gaza Five”, a group of politicians who ran on an Islamopopulist platform, were elected to parliament. These candidates ignore the liberal universalist ideals that other British politicians are committed to, instead making explicit appeals to ethno-religious solidarity.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Muslim-dominated cities of Birmingham, Oldham and Bradford have seen multiple cases of arson attacks on politicians’ cars in the lead-up to elections, as well as tyre slashing and threatening messages scratched into the paintwork. Violence is a feature of elections in Pakistan. Is it so very surprising that we are now seeing the same disorder in Pakistani-majority areas of Britain? Paying close attention to current affairs is part of my job, and it became apparent to me that British politics was changing, and not for the better.

I sought out scholarly opinion on the matter, and came across the work of David Betz, a professor of war studies at King’s College London. A mild-mannered Canadian who specializes in the study of insurgency, Betz has provided expert advice to the British government on combating insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2019, along with fellow academic Michael Rainsborough, he has been warning about a threat closer to home: a fracturing within British society that seems to presage violence.

Betz and I corresponded by email for some months, and at the beginning of 2025 we spoke on my podcast. I was, I believe, the first journalist to interview him. The public response was extraordinary, no doubt because Betz’s analysis was delivered in such a calm, reasoned tone, and because his message tallies with what so many of us laypeople have observed about the direction things have gone in recent years.

He uses established models and ideas within the discipline of war studies to predict that Britain and France are the Western countries most likely to experience the outbreak of a violent civil conflict that would be fought primarily along ethnic lines. Such conflicts would be the product of economic stress, lost political legitimacy, indigestible levels of immigration from culturally distant places, and a sense of “downgrade” among a native population that feels itself to be losing power and status. Britain is, says Betz, “explosively configured”.

In an article co-written last year with MLR Smith of the Centre for Future Defence and National Security in Canberra, the two academics underlined the increasingly mainstream status of these predictions: “The strategic logic underpinning the argument is not esoteric. The warning signs – erosion of trust, delegitimised politics, social disintegration, elite denial – have long been legible … (T)he steady trickle of retired police chiefs, former civil servants and security officials privately voicing concern indicates that the thesis is apprehended even if never formally endorsed.”

It’s possible these predictions are wrong. But nothing that has happened since 2024 has made me feel more confident about Britain’s trajectory. Since then, we have seen more outbreaks of race rioting and increased political instability. And, all the while, experts warn that the government is borrowing and spending way beyond its means, with welfare spending exceeding income tax revenue. This economic pain will be intensified by the loss to emigration of both the wealthy and the youthful which seems to be under way. A poorer Britain is hardly likely to be a more peaceful Britain.

I realise I’m contributing to this potential doom loop by leaving. Anecdotally, a lot of my peers are thinking along the same lines. A message I received from a friend over the weekend: “every cell of my body wants to emigrate.” If Britons with the means to leave start to do so at scale, then a crisis of mass emigration could be at hand. Some in Britain will accuse me of cowardice and treachery, not only for leaving, but also for writing about it. I did think seriously about drawing a veil over my own emigration, and never publicly explaining why we had done it. But people kept asking, and I grew tired of not telling the whole truth.

My defence is that we wouldn’t have left if it weren’t for our children. That’s why the detail in The Last of England that now draws my focus is the one in the centre of the painting: the mother holding her baby’s hand.

A teenage girl has spoken of her terror, claiming an Uber driver locked her in his car and demanded to be paid with details emerging in a Fair Work Commission judgment.

The 18-year-old was being driven home in the early hours of January 3 when the driver cancelled the ride and locked the doors of his car until she transferred him money, it was alleged.

The alleged horror ordeal involved former Uber driver Abdullah Ahmed Mohammed whose account was deactivated following multiple accusations the man demanded they cancel their ride and transfer him money.

Details of the allegations were published in a Fair Work Commission judgment, the 18-year-old telling Uber she left her phone on the front seat to charge during the trip and only noticed Mr Mohammed had cancelled the journey close to arrival at her home.

According to the girl’s claims in the documents, she told Uber: “We stop outside my house and I had taken my phone back like two minutes ago, three minutes ago, like I’d just gotten it back.

“And as I was getting out, he was like, ‘Oh, can you pay me? And I was like, ‘What do you mean, can I pay you?’

“And he was like, ‘Well, the Uber ride was cancelled, so I need to be paid through bank transfer’. And I don’t know if he locked the back door, or if he was unlocking the doors, but you know the clicks that all the locks make... that went off as soon as I reached for the door handle.”

She sent him “55 or like 65 bucks” of the $80 the driver said she owed through bank transfer, the documents said, and the driver took her phone number.

“He was like ‘I’ll text you in the morning to pay me the remaining 25’. And I was like, yeah, that’s okay. Okay, like I just wanted to get out of the car.”

“Hi you said you will send me 25 in the morning,” he wrote on a message, the FWC was told.

She blocked his number and later that day, Uber temporarily restricted his access to the app.

Mr Mohammed denied the claim and said it was ‘false’.

The FWC judgment showed two mobile bank payments to A Mohammed, a text message to the 18-year-old saying “25 in morning”. Mr Mohammed said the mobile number belonged to him.

The judgment said it was the second time Mr Mohammed was accused of inapropriate behaviour, the first was in July 2025 when another rider complained that he attempted to convince the passenger “to cancel the Uber and pay him more money than what I was getting charged on the app.”

The complaint also stated that “he was visibly annoyed and slightly argumentative when I said that I was going to stick with the app. He gave me a low star ratings a result, which hurt my perfect record”.

Mr Mohammed said all the complaints were “false” and accused both passengers on each separate occasion of being “drunk”, “not wearing seatbelts” and “behaving inappropriately throughout the trip”.

Following the two complaints, Uber stated they were terminating his account.

Dissatisfied with his account termination, Mr Mohammed filed a Fair Work complaint, alleging the reports against him were untrue and that was unfairly booted from the app.

He stated that he needed his Uber reinstated for income purposes and demanded the company pay him remuneration due to the deactivation of his account.

The Fair Work Commission found Mr Mohammed’s deactivation was consistent with the Digital Labour Platform Deactivation Code in that he had right of reply, and that the process was fair.

Tighter bail laws are being introduced in Queensland to crack down on youth crime, after the state government said it was getting “fed up” with repeat offenders being released on bail only to then reoffend.

Repeat offenders who commit serious crimes while on bail will be charged under a brand new offence, under the next phase of the Adult Crime, Adult Time plans.

The new offence will have a minimum mandatory sentence for these repeat offenders, and will come into effect by the end of 2026, the Crisafulli Government said.

Premier David Crisafulli said Breach Bail, Go to Jail for Adult Crime, Adult Time, would continue making Queensland safer, and build on the progress already turning the tide on youth crime.

“Breach Bail Go to Jail is the next phase of Adult Crime, Adult Time, which is holding youth offenders accountable for the first time in a long time,” he said.

“We’re heading in the right direction and we’ve heard from Queenslanders who are telling us to keep going, and we will with reforms to Labor’s weak bail laws.

“If a Court gives a youth criminal bail and they reoffend with a serious crime, that youth criminal will get a minimum mandatory sentence behind bars, under these reforms. “

The new laws mean if you breach bail you will go to jail, the Premier said.

“We promised to make Queensland safer and while we know the monumental task this is, we know our Adult Crime, Adult Time plan is working and we’re going to continue rolling out stronger laws to restore safety,” he said.

Meanwhile, Minister for Youth Justice and Victim Support Laura Gerber said the changes are much needed, and have been “a decade in the making”.

“Labor’s weak laws and fewer police created a Youth Crime Crisis which left Queenslanders in fear and youth offenders walking free,” she said.

“Labor cultivated a generation of untouchables and left Queenslanders victim to skyrocketing crime.

“We are turning the tide and Adult Crime, Adult Time is making a difference, with victim numbers down 7.2 per cent in the first year, trending down for the first time in a decade.

“Overwhelming Queenslanders are telling us our stronger laws are working and they want us to keep going, we are continuing to drive this forward.

“Bail is a privilege, not a right and if repeat offenders are breaching it, they should and will go to jail under this next phase of Adult Crime, Adult Time.

“In contrast Labor voted against Adult Crime, Adult Time and have already announced they want to wind it back and raise the age of criminal responsibility so youth criminals can’t be held accountable for their heinous crimes.”

This sub seems to be dominated by Sky News slop reposting and it is starting to feel a lot like America. It rarely offers anything other than opinion designed to make people argue under the guise it’s news.

When I’m scrolling almost every post that comes up from this sub on my feed is the same few people reposting the same sources over and over.

I get it drives engagement having people throwing shit at each other in the comments but what benefit does it provide the community as a whole?

Are they trying to drive clicks to the article? I don’t get it. All I know is it doesn’t stop and it’s always Sky.

The ban from reddit admin is over.

But it seems weird that calling a politician a c@%$ would earn you a ban. It's part of my culture to call them c%@$s. Not just c$@s, but most politicians go further into being shit c%^s, dog c%## territory even.

I make no apologies for it. I will do it again. And again.

The politician I called a c%@& this time is the eKaren.

I said she had links to the CIA, is American, doesn't belong in aussie politics, should be sent back to America, and is a c%@#

All of these though mean (imagine calling someone american, very rude I know) are objectively true and are not 'harassment'. Her spying on everyone and intrusive ID thing are far more harassing than anything I ever said. She is a c$@&. And so are her lickspittles in reddit admin.

I'm censoring this post so it stays up, but will not censor myself in future.

(to be clear, its not the mods here who censored this fair and balanced political commentary, but reddit admin no doubt under pressure from the aus gov, my free speech is being chilled by those c#%^s)

Are there any politicians you guys think are c@$#s?

E: I'll say it again, it was reddit admin and maybe one sad c$*# who reported the comment in the first place, not the mods here.

I can't get a crust on my steaks to save my life. I have tried every instruction on how to do it, but the fact is my electric burner, although it can reach an adequate crusting temperature, cannot hold this temperature once a room temperature steak is added to it. I am using a stainless steel pan, high smoke oil, measuring the temperature of that oil before I add the steak. My next step is having to fork out for a cast iron one.

But trying to troubleshoot this with an American who can use any pan, can add a cold steak to it, can use any oil, and has no issue getting a crust, and it turns out my largest burner is 18cm in diameter and their smallest electric burner is 22cm. My pans typically are 22cm+ in diameter. So the next theory to test is that the discrepancy in size of my burner to the base of my pan. My burners are no smaller than any of the places I have lived, so I assume is pretty standard Australia wide. But how are you all doing it? Or are we as a nation, just eating inadequately crusted steaks?

‘We are not banjo-playing dimwits’: The deep rural resentment that will shape the election

From potholes to power lines, anger is swirling in regional Victoria – and residents are turning to One Nation for answers.

By Benjamin Preiss, Alexander Darling

10 min. read

View original

The rollout of VNI West drew criticism for being short on answers when the Australian Energy Market Operator first revealed its preferred route for the transmission project.

Hide says anger and distrust ultimately filled this knowledge vacuum, to the point where people became afraid to talk openly about the project for fear of offending one another.

In November, state government agency VicGrid assumed responsibility for planning transmission and renewable energy zones.

VicGrid chief executive Alistair Parker at a 2023 energy summit. Dion Georgopoulos / The Australian Financial Review

VicGrid chief executive Alistair Parker says the government established the agency after recognising national arrangements for renewable infrastructure had not served communities well.

VicGrid has introduced new guidelines, which Parker says will ensure communities in renewable energy zones are treated respectfully.

Some nondisclosure agreements for landholders hosting renewable infrastructure will be scrapped. Previously, these contracts banned property owners from discussing their financial payouts with neighbours.

Parker says 40 per cent of the 220 property owners along the VNI easement have allowed VicGrid access to their land under voluntary agreement.

He expects compulsory easement acquisition will only be necessary for 2 per cent or 3 per cent of property owners once the process concludes, based on experience elsewhere.

A COVID testing clinic on Phillip Island in 2021. There are still frustrations in regional Victoria about the hangover from the pandemic.Wayne Taylor

“So it doesn’t take the land off people, it just creates an easement across the land,” Parker says.

He insists VicGrid now has better decommissioning processes in place when renewable infrastructure reaches its end of life. And he says VicGrid is also trying to better share information about renewable projects with communities.

“We’ll come and talk to anybody about any aspect of this whenever it suits them,” he says.

But Hide remains pessimistic about VicGrid’s attempts to make amends. “I think the damage has been done,” she says.

The most recent community reference group meeting was abandoned after dozens of anti-transmission line protesters gatecrashed with signs and chants. In one video of the confrontation, a man can be heard saying: “You could have done this five years ago, and you didn’t bother.”

A generally negative sentiment bubbling in regional Victoria has emerged clearly in opinion polls.

The Age’s Resolve Political Monitor, which surveyed 1652 Victorians in April, May and June, found 46 per cent of regional and rural Victorians expect their personal outlook to worsen, compared with 32 per cent of respondents in Melbourne.

Similarly, 51 per cent of rural and regional Victorians expect the state outlook to worsen, whereas 38 per cent of Melburnians responded the same way.

Resolve founder Jim Reed says cost of living is the most pressing concern uniting Melburnians and regional Victorians. But now rising anger in the regions is flowing through to increased support for One Nation: according to polling, Hanson’s party has a primary vote of 31 per cent in the regions, compared with 19 per cent in Melbourne.

Reed says voters are drawn to the One Nation leader’s unvarnished image and plain speaking style. Hanson’s decision to accept a plane from billionaire Gina Rinehart seemingly mattered little to her supporters.

“They are willing to forgive her quite a great deal in terms of her candidates’ behaviour and getting airplanes because she seems to stand for them,” Reed says.

Reed says critics once dismissed One Nation’s supporters as grumpy, old white men. But One Nation is increasingly drawing supporters from every demographic group. That includes, crucially, women aged between 30 and 50.

“Once you’ve won that group you tend to get a snowball effect,” the pollster says.

Natasha Miller is in that group. The fifth-generation Mildura resident already had something in common with Hanson, as the owner of a fast-food shop. But after years of watching transport and health issues in her community persist largely unabated, she’s now considering voting for One Nation.

And Miller knows she’s not alone.

“I have customers who have told me they will be voting One Nation,” she says, even though the party is yet to announce its candidates for November’s election.

“I think government needs a shake-up, and if One Nation can at least do that – get some different ideas and different people in there – then that’s what I’m hoping for.”

Miller’s experiences speak to the growing resentment for the extent to which decisions made in Melbourne affect regional Victorians’ lives.

COVID and the associated lockdowns were a turning point for her. Miller spent hours navigating government bureaucracy so she and her staff could keep working, while watching jealously as, just over the border, regional NSW lived in relative normality.

Natasha Miller is considering a vote for One Nation for the first time. Ian McKenzie

Four years on, Miller is serving one-third of the customer base she had before the lockdowns.

“Everybody is talking about how slow business is – tradies tell me they’re waiting for the phone to ring,” she says. “We have not recovered at all, not even close.”

In response to questions about sentiment in the regions, a government spokeswoman lists a raft of commitments. Her response ranges from 68,000 energy jobs across the state to $1.04 billion on roads, including 70 per cent for regional Victoria.

“Only Labor will deliver cheaper power for all Victorians and $18 billion in wages for regional Victorian workers through our renewable energy transition,” the spokesperson says.

>Penshurst resident Ama Cooke

Alex Fein, research and intelligence principal at polling firm Redbridge, says regional Victoria is somewhat more susceptible to anti-establishment and populist sentiment than Melbourne.

She believes social media also allows populist messages to be spread easily throughout the regions, where residents often face greater economic challenges and less access to services than their city counterparts.

The conservative Sky News now broadcasts for free in regional Victoria and its evening hosts often invite Hanson on air for interviews. Meanwhile, television audiences for the ABC, which is required to be politically neutral, are declining.

“Whatever is really difficult everywhere in Australia is doubly so in regional areas,” Fein says.

“They have to drive longer distances and their services are strained. The cracks are wider to begin with.”

A report by the OECD released in January supports the assertion that regional communities confront steep financial hurdles. It found Australians have experienced a marked decline in disposable incomes while inflation surged and mortgages soared.

A series of major shocks have battered the Australian economy: the COVID-19 pandemic, energy and food price spikes due to war in Ukraine, and sharp interest rate rises.

These economic blows hit the regions particularly hard. Furthermore, the OECD report said the concentration of house price gains in capital cities meant the economic disparity between urban and rural areas widened.

Ama Cooke sees these challenges firsthand. She runs a newsletter for her community in Penshurst, just south of the Grampians. Like Miller, she points to myriad reasons why residents of rural Victoria feel let down by the political class.

“I think people are sick of being lied to,” she says.

When pressed to identify the most urgent problems in her community, Cooke nominates the shortage of doctors and the poor state of rural roads.

The paucity of health services in the region means it can take up to three months to secure a doctor’s appointment.

“You can go to the emergency department, but why would you with a sore throat?”

Cooke’s priorities for change are entwined. The lack of health services force residents to drive long distances for medical attention. But deep and numerous potholes pose a daily danger to rural residents who have no option but to drive.

“Why can’t they do decent repairs instead of a quarter-inch layer of tar and pretending that’s OK?” she says.

Harlen Black is regularly called out to stranded drivers whose cars are damaged by potholes. Justin McManus

In Benalla, tow company owner Harlen Black is well acquainted with potholes. His team is regularly called out to motorbikes and cars damaged by the road surface on the Midland Highway and Hume Freeway.

Three weeks ago, his crews were called to a pothole about 70 centimetres long and several inches deep near a bridge on the Hume. It had damaged eight cars.

“Most of them had the wheel or the rim itself destroyed, so it’s a fairly big pothole to do that,” Black says.

He says the potholes are a huge financial and mental burden for the drivers whose vehicles were damaged, especially given many gave up car insurance due to the cost of living, which forced them to cover the entire cost of repairs.

“They’re very, very frustrated,” Black says. “You just want to have good roads, and we don’t at the moment.”

During the week, five cars lost tyres to a metre-wide pothole on the Hume north of Seymour, and Annabelle Cleeland, the Nationals MP representing the area, said her office had received almost 100 reports from people with road-damaged vehicles.

Just another week on regional roads.

For James Knight in Mortlake, the tensions around renewable energy, the government’s attempts to levy volunteer firefighters and the poor state of roads point to a deeper frustration that regional communities are feeling viscerally.

When they’re not being overlooked, they feel looked down upon.

Knight and Mifsud have both raised concerns about the impact of renewables on their community. Jason South

“We are not banjo-playing dimwits,” Knight says. “There are some very educated and smart people out here.”

Should regional voters unite to punish the political establishment in November’s election, the consequences may ripple well beyond the country roads and farms to impact all Victorians. That includes the city dwellers too.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.

From the time he was a child, James Knight knew his future lay in rural Victoria. Although he grew up in Melbourne, Knight got a taste of life on the land during school holidays at his uncle and aunt’s beef and cropping farm.

From that moment, his mind was made up.

“I got hooked,” he says.

Later, Knight worked in corporate agriculture for four years while living with his wife, Georgie, in Melbourne. And during that time, the land kept calling.

The couple both wanted the farm life and experience of living in a close rural community. So, when the chance came to take over Georgie’s family beef farm in south-west Victoria, they took it.

Knight (left) on his Mortlake farm with fellow farmer Robert Mifsud.Jason South

But when they moved there in 2016, Knight found a community simmering with frustration. There was a proposal at the time for a wind farm with more than 40 turbines.

While some landowners agreed to host turbines, many in the community vehemently opposed them, including Knight’s father-in-law.

It was obvious to Knight that the project consumed the lives of neighbours “and not for the better”. So he sided with his father-in-law, declining to host turbines on their farm.

The renewable energy wind project proceeded anyway with 35 turbines, including one erected 200 metres from Knight’s title boundary and 1.5 kilometres from his house.

Knight understands Victoria needs renewable energy. But he believes many regional communities feel corporate interests have forced renewable projects on them, while compliant governments allowed the benefits to flow to the cities.

Renewables infrastructure has angered some residents of regional Victoria. Jason South

“How about we put 30 or 40 of these across the St Kilda foreshore and see how you go?” Knight says. “Because it’s the same for us out here. We don’t want them.”

Knight says there are also frustrations with turbines and transmission lines hampering aircraft access, which can be required for firefighting and spraying fertiliser on farms.

Anger about the wind farm is emblematic of broader frustrations taking root across regional Victoria.

It’s not just the soaring transmission towers and lines stretching across the landscape throughout much of the state’s south-west. Or the wind turbines rising above farms where there was once uninterrupted sky.

Potholes are among the biggest frustrations in the regions. Justin McManus

It is not only the absence of doctors forcing people to drive long distances on roads pockmarked with festering potholes that pose a daily hazard to cars and lives.

Nor is it just the hangover of pandemic restrictions that damaged faith in government institutions. Or the patchy mobile and internet coverage. Or the fire services levy that enraged volunteer firefighters.

It is these and more grievances compounding into deep-seated resentment, and driven by a perception that state and corporate interventions inflict more harm than solutions to problems.

Many of these issues are specific to regional Victoria. Yet here’s why they matter to everyone else.

Then-premier Jeff Kennett flinging sand at the media at a CityLink event in 1996. In 1999, his government lost an election considered “unlosable”.Simon O’Dwyer

In 1999, rural seats swung hard against the Liberal Party, booting then-premier Jeff Kennett from government in an election he was expected to win easily. The eight regional seats Labor flipped, and three regional independents backing them, were enough to secure Labor minority government.

So began an era of political dominance that continues today.

But the dynamic is shifting drastically. Labor now faces the prospect of losing government in November after accumulating heavy political baggage over three terms.

Unlike previous state elections, Victoria is in uncharted political waters. Multiple polls indicate fed-up voters are warming to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation – a prospect that seemed all but impossible a year ago.

Knight is not a member of any political party, but he understands Hanson’s appeal. When Hanson took aim at renewables in her recent address to the National Press Club in Canberra, Knight said the message cut through.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson last month addressed the National Press Club for the first time.Bloomberg

“Any individual or organisation that’s going to call out renewable energy, you will get regional communities on board because I feel like we’re seeing it firsthand,” Knight says.

In 2024, the Clean Energy Council reported that farmers could earn more than $40,000 a year per turbine on their property and $1500 per hectare annually for solar panels. Farmers are also reimbursed for transmission line easements on their properties.

Justine Hide is also no stranger to state politics seeping into everyday life. The deputy mayor of Northern Grampians Shire spent the past year on a community reference group seeking government answers for landowners worried about the long-term impacts of the renewable energy transition.

The meetings touched on solar, wind and power lines, but tended to be dominated by one particular $7 billion transmission project planned to snake through 235 kilometres of Victorian farmland: VNI West.

For three years the shadow of this planned behemoth has loomed large over regional people’s lives, even if they support the project or aren’t farmers themselves.

Victorian farmers at Woosang in 2022 to protest against the VNI West project.Eamon Gallagher

“I can’t go to the supermarket or my kids’ swimming lessons without either seeing affected landowners or people in that community, and they’ll talk about it if they see you,” Hide says.