TUCKED AWAY IN a jade valley in the mist-shrouded hinterland of northern New South Wales, the former cedar-logging village of Tyalgum seems an unlikely place for a revolution. The pace of life is unhurried, and when the electricity goes down, as it often does in this little community at the edge of the grid, people sigh and make do. Publican Paul McMahon keeps battery-powered lanterns behind the bar of the ninety-year-old Tyalgum Hotel, and tells, with a chuckle, of locals playing pool during one blackout by the light of their mobile phones.

Lately, though, patience has frayed. Blame it on one too many boiling days without air-con, or the arrival of yet another eye-popping bill – Tyalgum’s secluded location, an hour inland on winding back roads, has not sheltered it from the vertiginous price rises that have made Australia’s electricity among the costliest on the planet.