Cups of tea, home-sewn banners, kitchen chats: could it be a recipe for historic change? A record number of regional seats are being contested by independents this election, part of a nationwide movement built by trailblazing rural women.
Words Sarah Turnbull
ALANA Johnson is home on her property near Benalla in north-east Victoria when we speak. Pink shirt, pearl drop earrings, warm, measured manner: the fifth-generation farmer and grandmother exudes can-do capability. As well as running Angus cattle, she and husband Rob Richardson have spent decades restoring the once-denuded slopes on their property – at last count they had 193 native bird species. With a federal election imminent, however, there’s no time to birdwatch.
As director of the Community Independents Project (CIP), Johnson has been mentoring 35 independent candidates across the country, and providing online training for growing armies of volunteers. Like Cathy McGowan, a fellow farmer and co-founder of the organisation, Johnson hardly looks like a political insurgent. Yet behind the unfailingly positive campaigns and the kitchen cuppas is a carefully considered strategy that challenges entrenched notions of politics and power.
