2025
Federal Election Doorknocking
With a federal election early on in 2025 and with our region representing a marginal electorate, CAFNEC launched an outreach campaign to prioritise climate action, extreme weather resilience and a just energy transition in the minds of voters across Cairns.
Our goal: To seize this crucial election period, when candidates are actively engaging with communities, to highlight the urgency of strong conservation policies. Through actions and events we sent a clear message: Far North Queenslanders care deeply about where candidates and their parties stand on energy, biodiversity, and climate action.
A key tactic of our strategy: A dynamic door-knocking campaign, built on insights from our past climate conversations, but this time with a laser focus on the high-stakes Leichhardt election.
This 10-week grassroots campaign empowered and trained CAFNEC volunteers to engage local communities across Cairns in meaningful, values-based conversations about climate change, renewable energy, and the stakes of the upcoming federal election.
Through door knocking and direct outreach, the campaign created space for listening to community concerns, sharing accurate information, and encouraging action. Volunteers were supported with tailored training, talking guides, and survey tools to ensure conversations were constructive, inclusive, and focused on solutions. This approach helped build local trust, surfaced valuable insights about public sentiment, and strengthened community confidence in advocating for a clean energy future.
Doors knocked:
Climate Action Now signs
Suburbs
Volunteers trained
Reef, Climate & Energy Candidates Forum
In collaboration with AMCS, Divers for Climate, and QCC, CAFNEC co-hosted a highly successful public forum focused on the key themes of Great Barrier Reef protection, community resilience to climate impacts and affordable energy solutions.
The event served to both inform the public about where Leichhardt candidates stood on these critical issues and to elevate the importance of strong climate and energy policies in the election discourse.
With a robust community turnout of nearly 100 people and media coverage from 7 News, ABC Radio Cairns and the Cairns Post, the forum not only highlighted public expectations but also sent a clear message to candidates: their constituents see climate action as a decisive issue that could significantly influence their electoral success.
During the event, we featured a diverse range of individuals from key demographic groups, each raising questions that reflected their unique experiences and concerns. This approach ensured that the voices of communities most impacted by climate change were heard and represented in the conversation.
Environmental Scorecard Distribution
During the two weeks of pre-polling and on election day, CAFNEC led the coordination of climate and nature scorecard distribution across Cairns.
This scorecards, provided by Australian Conservation Foundation, were an issue-based assessment showing how closely parties and candidates aligned with their policy agenda for protecting nature and acting on climate.
This Agenda has 4 main pillars:
1. Protect nature
2. Champion renewables and cut pollution
3. Reject nuclear
4. Stop polluters
CAFNEC developed clear training manuals and on-ground support to ensure volunteers felt confident and prepared when engaging voters on the ground.
It was a weeks-long effort that saw 36 volunteer deployed across the 3 Cairns early-voting boots and 15 of Cairns busiest booths on election day and 6000 scorecards distributed to voters.
