One Nation’s win in the Federal seat of Farrer is the harvest of more than a decade of Coalition disengagement from the native hardwood sector, with the by-election confirming what red gum operators across NSW had warned through years of failed approaches to the seat’s former member. The Coalition Parties treated Farrer as a safe rural holding, with industries written off as a sure vote and policy ground quietly ceded to renewable energy interests that have flourished in NSW since Barry O’Farrell’s departure as Premier.
After the NSW Parliament enacted the National Park Estate (Riverina Red Gum Reservations) Act 2010 (No 22), the seat’s former member, Sussan Ley, met red gum industry representatives only a couple of times across her 24 years in Farrer, according to industry accounts of the period. Industry contact with the former member’s office was limited to election cycles, with policy engagement on the closure of the local sector effectively absent during her time in the seat.
Whilst Ley served as Environment Minister in the Morrison government and authorised the Samuel Review of the EPBC Act in February 2021, her department refused to engage with industry on the statutory fix to the 2020 Federal Court ruling that threatened the operation of the Regional Forest Agreements Act. The Full Federal Court reversed that ruling in May 2021, but the Federal Senate referred the RFA measures in the EPBC Act for review and a hearing followed.
Speaking for TimberNSW, Stuart Coppock, one of Australia’s only legal practitioners with a deep working knowledge of the RFA framework, appeared before the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee in April 2021 to give evidence on a proposed business judgment rule modelled on the Corporations Act and the national Work Health and Safety legislation. The Committee’s final report endorsed the Coppock-recommended solution as a valid and viable response to the Federal Court ruling, providing both a compliance standard for foresters and a defence where that standard was met.
Despite the Committee’s endorsement, the block on amending the EPBC Act came from Minister Ley, who again refused to meet with the industry. The opening line of the subsequent online consultation by Canberra environmental officers on the Samuel Report was reportedly “Why should we not close native forestry?”, delivered in the first five minutes of an hour-long Zoom conference.
Although a change of Government had occurred by that point, the same departmental officers briefed two successive Ministers in the managerial style that Farrer voters have now rejected. In the by-election itself, One Nation candidate David Farley made direct contact with local red gum operators, including Todd Gelletly, Managing Director of Gelletly Red Gum Firewood at Barham, as Wood Central reported on the campaign visit at the time.
Whilst the National Party recognised the need for the sector’s traditional party to engage, repeated approaches from red gum operators to the NSW National Party head office and the local campaign team yielded no response. The Federal National Party Leader worked the seat hard but was not connected with the industry, exposing the long-running divide between city-based National officers and the rural membership.
Other explanations may include complacency, a thin understanding of how to campaign in regional Australia, or an assumption that politics can be run as a managerial exercise from a mobile phone. On Facebook, Jack Ayoub contrasted the vision and language of the One Nation victory declaration in Farrer with what he called the Liberals’ and the Left’s managerialism.
One Nation has exposed the managerialism of the mainstream conservative parties, with the resulting register so detached from constituents that no one is listening, and the parties have become irrelevant. Farrer voters wanted their country back, with the professional political class managing the stage front for a professional public service, writing the policies the bureaucracy wants and ignoring the people paying its salaries.
With Matt Canavan elected Federal Nationals leader on 11 March 2026 on a mandate to rebuild bridges with the rural and hardwood communities now actively courted by One Nation, the Farrer by-election delivers his first measurable test as leader. Canavan inherits a red gum sector that has spent years approaching the National head office without response and a Riverina electorate that has just voted accordingly.
Until the mainstream parties hear the majority of voters who marked One Nation first on their ballots in Farrer, One Nation will keep growing. The line on the night of the by-election was “we want our country back” — a sentiment that mainstream campaign managers had failed to register through months of doorknocking and polling.
When the Coalition takes the time to contact an industry that environmentalists want closed and to defend it publicly, political managerialism may finally die on the vine. Native forestry is one such industry, and only Farley and One Nation reached out to it in the Farrer by-election, whilst the former member and the two main conservative parties did not.
When the Coalition takes the time to contact an industry that environmentalists want closed and publicly defend it, political managerialism may finally die on the vine. Native forestry is one such industry, and only Farley and One Nation reached out to it in the Farrer by-election, whilst the former member and the two main conservative parties did not.
