So it was then that the sitting member and Liberal candidate for the seat of South West Coast Roma Britnell came to drink from the same bitter cup this week. Her “party line” on the Labor state government’s renewable energy target left her caught firmly between the fire and the frying pan.

Having to toe the conservatives’ party line on climate change and thus criticise the state government’s renewable energy approach went very badly for her in Portland in particular, a town now seen as ground zero for the November 24 poll. Portland’s second-largest employer Keppel Prince is profiting hugely from the Labor state government’s renewable energy target that is seeing wind farms heading to the south-west in droves. Keppel Prince is upsizing and the boom days ahead for it and other south-west employers are clear and apparent. The south-west needs to embrace the bloom of wind farms. Not in clusters, it needs to be said. And better planning is needed particularly when it comes to how many transmission lines are being built. But the economic benefits to the region are beyond argument. And the environmental benefits are surely beyond dispute. A quick drive to the blasted moonscape of the Latrobe Valley should be enough to convince the strongest of sceptics. 

The downsides (clusters, transmission lines and proximity) are solvable problems. The south-west’s politicians need to focus on these, rather than getting caught in climate change snares of their own making. Having said that, at least when it comes to this policy area voters have a clear choice between those who have made renewable energy a reality and those who prefer coal and climate change conspiracy theories.