Extract from The Guardian
Many locals say they’ll support the barefoot climate activist, even though they don’t agree with many of his views
The first time Chris “Pineapple” Hooper ran for mayor in the Queensland city of Rockhampton, four years ago, he ran last in a field of six candidates.
“I’ve lived in Rocky all my life, I’ve known Pineapple for most of it and I’ve never voted for him because I thought he was a bit eccentric,” says one local, Gayle Doblo.
“I didn’t think he was the one for that role. Now, after everything that’s happened, I’ve done a complete change around. I’ve been looking at what he’s suggesting and I like it. I don’t care who stands now, I’m voting for him.”
Pineapple (named for his rough hair in his younger years) has been transformed from local oddity to celebrity in Rockhampton; a friend has quipped that his story is paused at the midpoint of a Paul Hogan film.
The protagonist, Hooper, is a 68-year-old climate and peace activist who runs a drop-in centre for artists. He used to work as a train driver but now rides around town barefoot on a collection of vintage bikes.
Last month the longstanding mayor of Rockhampton resigned. The law said Pineapple – who came second of two candidates at an election in March – was to be offered the job by default. Instead he was refused entry to the local council chambers while the state government hurriedly changed the law.
Undeterred, Hooper says he will run in a byelection early next year. And locals in the conservative, working-class town – a hub for cattle and coalmining – think he can win.
“I’ve had people I really haven’t talked to for years, they’re coming in to my shop saying, ‘What’s going on?’ They really back me,” Hooper says.
Doblo says the town can talk about little else. “Pineapple is the topic on everyone’s lips,” she says.
“There’s only one person I’ve spoken to who says they’ll wait and see who else runs [before deciding who to vote for]. Everyone else, we are all in agreement with Pineapple and to give him a go.
“At the end of the day, whether he’s got sandshoes or polished black shoes or no shoes, as long as he does a good job, who cares?”
A difficult discussion about coal
Graeme Dunstan, a longtime peace activist, first met Pinapple Hooper in Rockhampton about 10 years ago while protesting against US-Australia war games at nearby Shoalwater Bay.
Dunstan recalls Hooper spotting a Liberal MP holding a press conference a few years ago, and excitedly running out of his shop to stage an impromptu protest against the Adani coalmine.
“We rush a banner out there, they’re appalled,” Dunstan says. “He just gets up their noses.
“He’s always cooking up something but underneath it all he’s shy and retiring. He’s a lonely old man in one sense. That humility, that’s what attracts people to him. It’s called authenticity.”
Hooper tells the Guardian people have suggested to him – now that he’s considered a viable candidate in the byelection – that he tone down some of his climate change rhetoric to help win support in a city where the council actively promotes work opportunities with Adani.
“I’ve been advised by people on my side that I should stop talking about some of that – but I can’t,” he says.
At October’s Queensland election, the idea of a just transition for coal workers and their communities was barely discussed in central Queensland – especially by major party candidates. For all his eccentricities, the truly remarkable thing about Hooper is that he’s a viable candidate who’s willing to have a difficult but necessary conversation with people about the need for work that doesn’t rely on a sunset industry.
“The reason they don’t want me is I don’t want to play their coal game,” he says. “That’s basically it. I don’t fit their mould, I’ve upset the camp. They’re all pro-Adani, they don’t believe in climate change.
“People get sucked into all that thinking but they’ve got to understand the boom and bust economy is dangerous.”
Hooper’s Facebook page is full of comments from people who say they don’t support some of his views but they’ll vote for him anyway on principle.
Support has come from some unusual quarters. The One Nation MP for the nearby Queensland electorate of Mirani, Stephen Andrew, tried to raise the situation in state parliament last month and tabled a letter from Hooper.
Councils a ‘plaything’ of state governments
The former mayor, Margaret Strelow, resigned in November after a councillor conduct tribunal found she had engaged in misconduct by failing to update her register of interests to include hospitality received from Adani.
A few weeks earlier, as the tribunal investigation took place, Strelow posted a bizarre video on Facebook, wearing a suit made from bubble wrap.
“This is to try to protect me,” she said. If something happens to me you don’t have to vote … if anything happens to me then Chris Hooper is automatically your mayor. He’s your mayor for three-and-a-half years.”
The day after Strelow resigned, the Queensland government announced it would change a law – allowing for the automatic election of the second-placed candidate – it had introduced with little scrutiny in June.
Graeme Orr, a political law expert from the University of Queensland, says there are “good reasons” why a second-placed candidate should not be automatically elected but that process was “not good lawmaking”.
“If you had a Green who was elected, and if the second person running was ideologically a property developer, absolutely it made no sense to give it to the second person,” Orr says.
“What this does is it shows that all over Australia local government can be a bit of a plaything of states.”
Hooper was offered and accepted the role of mayor under the old law. The council stalled on his appointment at a meeting last month. Pineapple had expected to be sworn at a council meeting on 24 November. He says he was told the day before that he would not be allowed to attend.
‘No one will buy him out’
Hooper says he’s “not particularly worried” about the situation and that he’ll run in the byelection. He’s brimming with ideas, like creating a community reference panel to help make decisions, or buying back the old Bouldercombe pub to turn it into a community space.
“It’s all about giving autonomy back to people, even in the suburbs of our town, giving them autonomy back and encouraging them to make the decisions,” he says.
“Local governments are really cruel to people, they hammer them on all these rules.”
The way Pineapple was blocked by the political system has made him into a popular underdog. People who have never voted for him have pledged their support. And they’ve started to listen to his ideas as well.
“Definitely people support the coal industry,” Doblo says. That’s how a lot of people get their wealth, their paycheck – they depend on it.
“I have been reading up the stuff he has been saying, how he’s not against the mines as such, but opening more ones.
“I think that he’s always been a smart man, from what I’ve known, but you feel confident that no one will buy him out. If they said, ‘We’ll give you a Mercedes,’ he’d say, ‘My bike with no lights will be fine.’
“I myself think he’s got a very good chance of winning and if he does I think he’ll do good. I don’t know much about politics but I know about principles and he’s been ripped off.”
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