If ever there was an issue to play into the rise of populist politics, it has to be the Australian-Singapore defence training bunfight in central Queensland.

Consider this. In the Coalition’s most marginal seat of Capricornia, where Liberal National party MP Michelle Landry squeaked back into parliament on 0.1% of the vote, the Coalition government is threatening to compulsorily acquire farmland, in some cases from fourth-generation farming families.

The other earmarked training area is from the edge of Townsville in the electorate of Kennedy, held by Bob Katter. The independent has already threatened world war three if the government pushes farmers off their land. In a parliament with a majority of one. The Coalition has given him assurances they will look at at alternative sites.

Landholders know the Singapore agreement will not be undone. There is too much strategic interest at stake for that. The best they can hope for is no compulsory acquisitions.

But they are angry and upset. Those who spoke to me are mostly conservative voters and they feel robbed. They feel a loss of control, a sense that governments are against them and they say it will change votes in the region even while acknowledging that Landry was probably kept in the dark as much as they were. (Landry broke down on ABC radio a fortnight ago, claiming she was kept in the dark about the amount of land being claimed.)

Frustrations pour out and not just about this issue. Is that really how government works? Talk leads to farm rights. Like that Shenhua fight on the Liverpool Plains. We just keep getting done over. And all the mines. Companies and governments talk about rehabilitation but it never works. They tip the country upside down and it is never the same again. This is prime ag land here, you could fatten anything on this place. Maybe everything will just go to the feedlot just when everyone wants grassfed beef. Governments don’t listen. They never do.

This is the talk that’s brewing in central Queensland. Why? Because the government needs the land after it signed an agreement with the Singaporean government that expanded an existing trade deal with a lucrative $2.2bn deal for defence.

In return for investment dollars, Singapore and Australia will jointly develop military training areas. Australia provides the land. Singapore provides the dosh – $1bn worth to upgrade facilities at Shoalwater Bay training area outside Rockhampton alone. In return for the dosh, 14,000 troops from the tiny island of Singapore get extra space to train for 18 weeks a year and Australian facilities get an upgrade. They have been training there on a smaller scale for 20 years.

The jobs and growth message out of this deal was hammered by the Coalition in the area during the last election. Some government strategists believe the promised investment won the seat for Landry. Two weeks before the election, the defence minister, Marise Payne, and local Rocky resident and resources minister, Matt Canavan, held press conferences with Landry to talk about the benefits for the area.

“You know with the Singaporeans we will be increasing the troops on the ground from 6,000 to 14,000,” Payne said in Rockhampton.

“It is going to have significant impact on the financial sector in this area; with tourism, hospitality, just the general purchases in retail, as well as the up to a billion dollars that we can get for local contractors to actually be supported by the Singaporean government.”

They didn’t talk about land acquisitions. That only came in November after the election when 60 landholders received letters from the defence department informing them their land could be acquired for the training area.

Linda and Lawson Geddes received that letter. Lawson’s family has been on Couti-Outi for 140 years, their grandkids are the fifth generation. Their son, also Lawson, was to take over the place with his wife and two kids. He is already working it.

The Geddes share a boundary with the existing Shoalwater Bay training area that joins on the coast. The relationship with the facility has been fine, with the Geddes’ shifting cattle for parachute drops and when the “goodies are fighting the baddies” in training exercises. But their 38,000-acre property – with its valuable drought-resistant marine plains – is now a prime target for the army. Their world dropped away when they opened the letter.

“I just thought, is this real?” Linda said. “Are they joking? So it was disbelief to start with and, days went by, everyone was talking about it.”

Some landholders found out when an acquisition notice went in the local paper. One landholder has sold but the long-term landholders appear unmoved by financial offers. Locals says the businesses in nearby Marlborough will be decimated and the two-teacher school will probably go if their are no surrounding families to feed it.

But anxiety levels are not just high around farmhouse tables in Rockhampton and Charters Towers. Inside the federal government there is finger pointing about a flawed process. Payne suffered an ongoing illness that meant surgery in November at the same time as landholders were told. Insiders say, as a result, she was missing in action. Some claim the process was mishandled by defence. Writing letters without a clear idea of exactly which properties were needed meant the fear and loathing spread further than need be. Heat is being applied by the local media. The defence minister has been lampooned in rural newspapers; Queensland Country Life branded her “Major Payne”.

But the issue also went to the government’s national security committee so no one in senior Coalition levels can claim they were blindsided. Increasing the pincer movement on the federal Coalition is the Queensland Labor government as it prepares for the state election campaign later this year. The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has funded a study called for by farm lobby group Agforce and the premier even asked the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, to persuade Malcolm Turnbull. Understandably, the LNP opposition leader, Tim Nicholls, is also keen to become involved.

Long convo with @TurnbullMalcolm - got commitment he'll ask @DeptDefence to look for alternatives for Singapore army training in CQ. #qldpol — Tim Nicholls MP (@TimNichollsMP) February 1, 2017

Hanson was ready and waiting. She had met the defence department and claimed in a Ray Hadley interview that she was told the only reason defence needs to expand the Shoalwater facility is because they are prevented from clearing trees on their existing land as a result of state native vegetation laws – another hot-button issue in regional areas. Hanson said a cargo operator told her the Singaporean government will be bringing in its own supplies so the local economy would miss out on business. Even the images of Asian soldiers landing on beaches next to news stories plays to the One Nation tune.

It is understood Singapore has had no contact with local businesses as yet under the new deal. But the Singapore agreement does contain a clause to prioritise local business in both construction and ongoing activities.

Payne and Canavan met with landholders recently but could only offer tea and sympathy. Geddes said their message was prime agricultural land should be used for agriculture but if the army needs training areas, they could have it.

“What does that even mean?” one landholder asked me.

On Friday, the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, will meet other landholders on the Geddes property before the issue goes back to the NSC and finally at cabinet. In the next few weeks, a final map will be released to show which properties are directly affected.

While the new map release may narrow the numbers affected, it will not change the outcome for a large portion of landholders because, for many of the families, cash is not the issue.

“As Lawson [snr] said, if they dangled $100m in front of me, I would not take it – I will never get land like this again,” Linda said. “That’s all any of the kids ever wanted to do, chase cows and live on land.”