Concerns around the impacts of the coal seam gas industry on both herself as a landholder and the wider community have seen Sharon Lohse switch to representing Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the seat of Callide in the upcoming state election.
PHON announced at the start of the year that Ms Lohse would be its candidate for Warrego, and she met with interested people to discuss vegetation management at Mitchell in January.
At that meeting Ms Lohse expressed concern with the “continued and deliberate erosion of landholders’ property rights by consecutive state governments”.
She told Queensland Country Life she decided to switch to the Callide electorate after the electoral redistribution redrew its boundaries, which saw her Chinchilla property moved into Callide.
A board member of Property Rights Australia, Ms Lohse said that after years of fighting for issues for their own business, she had given up on either of the two major parties to ever focus on regional Queensland issues.
“I am not going to continue to knock on doors of politicians that have no interest in listening to issues in the bush,” she said.
”The landholders in the areas of the CSG industry, are desperate for a political party that will listen to their concerns of contamination, intimidation and broken landholder agreements.
“To date neither major party has addressed this serious issue, instigated an inquiry into past issues nor held companies in breach, to account for their actions.”
Increased power prices, caused she said by the ALP’s push to have 50 per cent of the state’s power generated from renewable sources, were another source of concern.
She agreed with the proposal to build a coal-fired power station in the state’s north, and was in favour of investigating water schemes, especially the Bradfield Scheme.
At the One Nation AGM on Thursday, Pauline Hanson said the party had candidates pre-selected for 53 of the 93 seats to be contested at the next state election.
Outside the AGM, the Queensland senator said One Nation identified Rockhampton and Mackay as possible state wins for the party and said it was looking for candidates.
“Those two seats; they are seats we think we can possibly win,” she said. “There is strong support for us in those areas.”
A full list of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation candidates to date can be found here. At this stage, no candidate is listed for Warrego.