Woodford is a long way from the Canberra bubble.
That is, until an election nears, when those vying to lead the country develop a sudden and keen interest in marginal seats in Queensland.
The electorally volatile seat of Longman lies just north of Brisbane, stretching from a fertile hinterland, home to the Woodford folk festival, down through a fast-growing corridor of new houses to the shores of Moreton Bay and Bribie Island.
The diverse geography of the seat is reflected in its demographics, with farmers and alternative lifestylers rubbing shoulders in its western reaches, working class and young families in its heartland and retirees making up the bulk of the population around Bribie.
Triennial rituals began this year well before the official start of the federal election campaign, when Scott Morrison toured the seat with Terry Young, the man who won it back from Labor in 2019.
The pair rolled into Woodford in late January, nursing schooners at the Woodford Hotel and sipping coffees at Jalla’s cafe.
But if the Liberal leader won over voters on that trip, Bruce Pryde was not among them.
Morrison is “probably worse” even than the former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Pryde says, perched at a table outside Jalla’s.
Not that Labor are likely to benefit from Pryde’s damning assessment of the prime minister.
“Albo’s a wet rag, a nothing really,” he says.
Pryde, who was “cured of work” eight years ago, has voted Labor most of his life, dabbling occasionally with “the other mobs” such as the Greens.
But at this election the retired water utility company worker will vote on a single issue that didn’t exist three years ago. Pryde will lodge a coronavirus “protest vote” against what he describes as “the big three”: the Liberals, Labor and Greens.
That means he will vote for Clive Palmer’s United Australia party or Pauline Hanson’s One Nation for the first time.
At another table sits Bianca Patruno, who “always went for the Greens” but recently drifted towards the Animal Justice party.
The support worker says she doesn’t see much point in voting. From the housing crisis to support for mental health, the issues Patruno cares about don’t seem to be on the major parties’ radar.
But Patruno agrees “the mandates were too controlling” and says she was “forced” to get a jab to keep her job.
Others opted not to. Sharni Kate, a young mother carrying her toddler to the library playtime, says she quit her job as an early childhood teacher and took up dog grooming rather than receive a vaccine.
Kate says she will vote for someone who is “against mandates” and that Palmer’s big yellow billboards are resonating.
Her friend Sam Sewell, a 32-year-old mother of four, says she too was “trying to stand her ground” against the vaccine, but relented in order to keep her position as president of the Delaneys Creek state school P&C.
She didn’t like it, but now that “the restrictions are dropped”, Sewell says Covid is not likely to influence her vote.
Which sentiment is more widespread in the electorate may go a long way to determining the outcome of the seat.
‘The unions are like the mafia’
Young won Longman by a margin of 3.3% in 2019, despite a slight swing against the Liberal National party that reduced its primary vote to 38.59%. He was carried over the line on preferences after swings towards One Nation (13.22% primary vote) and UAP (3.36%), as well as the Greens (6.71%).
The seat has swapped hands at four of the past five federal elections, and events of the past three years could make it even more volatile, according Reece Casey, a 35-year-old tradie.
Casey and his English staffy Lexi are camped in a stand of radiata pines on a 24-hectare horse stud on the road to Stanmore. The pair have been living off-grid for the last 18 months.
Since the owners of the Morayfield townhouse he was renting fled Sydney’s lockdowns, Casey has been homeless.
Casey says his generation has been “screwed” by a crisis in the housing market, exacerbated in Longman after thousands of people moved from southern states to south-east Queensland when the pandemic hit.
But the former “class clown” of Caboolture East primary school says he was “born an optimist”.
Casey has invested $18,000 in his tent home, and rents patches of bare ground from farmers for a fraction of what he was paying for a roof over his head.
As he saves for a home loan, Casey also has plans to franchise his polyurethane and silicone joint-sealing business.
The young tradie says he has only ever voted Labor. But this time around, with the defence minister Peter Dutton beating the drums of war from nearby Dickson, Casey fears Labor is “too soft on China” and is considering voting for the LNP.
“If we have to go to war, we have to go to war,” he says.
As they compete for swing voters, the LNP and Labor can count on rusted-on supporters in different pockets of the 1,237 sq km electorate.
Halfway down the D’Aguilar highway towards Caboolture is the district of Wamuran.
Here, the Glass House Mountains provide a dramatic backdrop to a patchwork of strawberry and pineapple plantations, interspersed by groves of mangoes and bananas.
Strawberry and herb farmers Mandy and Adrian Schultz say growers are grappling with a shortage of pickers.
Though neither of the Schultzes describe themselves as party-affiliated, Labor was never likely to win their vote.
“I think Albo is a good bloke,” Adrian says. “But he represents the unions and, to us, they’re like the mafia.”
The minor parties are also unlikely to sway the Schultzes. Mandy says she has “been an idiot and voted Pauline in the past”, but won’t again. The couple cannot understand why Palmer is allowed to tell “bare-faced lies”.
In contrast, Adrian thinks Morrison has done a “pretty good job overall”, particularly in his response to the pandemic.
They have dealt with Young and have a positive impression of their MP.
The benefits of incumbency are reinforced by Young’s dominance of billboards throughout the electorate and favourable local media coverage.
But those messages will be lost on many in the heart of the electorate, a fast-growing belt of new houses centred on Caboolture and running down towards the outer northern suburbs of Brisbane.
Raymond Totoro, the president of the Caboolture Snakes rugby league club, says working-class voters like him relate more to Albanese than the Labor leader’s predecessors.
“He’s got a bit of, not Bob Hawke sparkle, but he’s got a little bit of something,” the delivery driver says.
“He seems more down to earth than the last couple of leaders.”
But Totoro says his biggest issue is a decidedly local one.
The Snakes’ “spiritual home” by the banks of the Caboolture River “got smashed” in February’s floods, and with no lights, the seniors are training and playing elsewhere.
Totoro says there is anger that the club has received no outreach, let alone support, from the federal government to rebuild.
‘Everything is going up, except our wages’
Opposite the Caboolture train station, a group of young men in hi-vis shoot pool at the Club Tavern.
Jack Timms, 20, says his “words get all jumbled up” when asked about politics. But the young roofer talks to the issue that matters most to him with aplomb.
“Petrol prices, living prices, everything is going up, except our wages,” he says.
“Now we’re battling through, week to week, when we should be able to earn a decent wage for the work we do.”
But, come 21 May, it may be another generation’s vote that proves decisive.
Bribie Island and the mainland neighbourhoods on the other side of Pumicestone Passage are a mecca for retirees.
Despite punishing Labor at the last federal election, older voters here backed the premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in 2020, with the popular local member Ali King winning the state seat of Pumicestone from the LNP with a swing of 6.1%.
Federal Labor has ditched its policies on negative gearing and capital gains taxes which riled older voters in 2019.
But the manager of the Bribie Island Community Arts Centre, a hub for retirees, wonders if Albanese and the Labor candidate Rebecca Fanning have done enough to win them back.
“I don’t know how anyone out there would know who she is,” Julie Thomson says of Fanning.
Inside one of the centre’s sheds run by the Bribie Island Gem and Fossicking Club, two retirees are cutting and shining rocks.
Barry Anderson is a former radio announcer; his mate Bill Sargent was a livestock auctioneer.
Asked to nominate the election issues that matter to them, they agree on a two-word answer: “My superannuation.”
Anderson and Sargent are worried about petrol and grocery prices, and want to know their pension won’t be cut and the economy is well managed.
But that concern will lead them to cast very different ballots.
Anderson has little faith in the prime minister, who he derides for his “incompetence”.
Sargent says he doesn’t “particularly like ScoMo”, but will vote LNP regardless.
“I’m quite happy with the way the country is running at the moment,” he says.
Really though, both men would rather talk gemstones.
Most people think rocks are dull and brown, they reckon. But when cracked open and buffed, the rocks reveal a kaleidoscope of colours.
Anderson examines a stone under a pocket microscope, before flicking on a black light, under whose rays any invisible flecks of ruby illuminate.
Longman, too, reveals its colour as it is dissected and examined. But it will take the black light of the ballot box to reveal whose points of view and which issues prove most valuable.
