Michael Greig would move heaven — and he does move earth — for his family.

When his Collie earthmoving business slowed down significantly last year after Griffin Coal reduced wages for some of its local workers, he put the blame squarely on the mine’s Indian owners, Lanco Infratech.

Mr Greig is not sure how Pauline Hanson’s One Nation could change the situation, but he believes the party’s nationalistic agenda would more broadly protect his family and Australia from foreign interests.

He believes his family — not yet on the property ladder and with two young mouths to feed — are among the forgotten people whom the major parties would rather leave at the whim of international commerce than move to protect.

Mr Greig is typical of many voters in the Collie-Preston electorate, which is one of the State’s top three One Nation hotspots. The others are Pilbara and Kalgoorlie.

“People are ready for a change,” he said. “We’ve seen it in America and we’ll see it here.”

Mr Greig said he supported One Nation policies such as banning Muslim sharia law and putting a lid on immigration and he believed the party would help to restore Australian pride.

He hopes Pauline Hanson would help to buy the Griffin Coal mine back for Australia.

“I don’t like that the mine is Indian-owned,” he said.

“We’ve got to keep resources in local hands. That’s what I love about Donald Trump. He’s keeping things in local hands in America.

“Australia needs to bring things back to Australia.”

Mr Greig is not concerned about recent controversial comments made by other candidates in the party that single mothers were lazy and that gay people used Nazi mind-control techniques, saying the claims were made by individuals and were not official policy.

He did not know the name of his local One Nation candidate and was voting for the party’s “old-fashioned values”.

His wife Crystal, who is from Florida, said her American family were strong Trump supporters. She believes Pauline Hanson, like Trump, is honest and transparent.

Election analyst William Bowe said the Collie area had a lot in common with sections of America’s Mid West, which swung in heavily behind Trump in the US election.

He said both areas had mainly blue-collar voters and relied on industries which had been in decline for years.

Collie’s two coal mines have suffered under the falling coal price, which was one of the reasons cited by Lanco Infratech for forcing 70 workers on to the Black Coal Award.

Under that, the workers have so far had a 19 per cent pay cut and will soon suffer a further 24 per cent reduction.

Hundreds more mine workers at both Collie mines fear the same fate.

The ramifications have been felt across town from real estate to coffee shops.

“All of the economic gains in America didn’t yield results for the Democrats at the election because of its two-speed economy and Collie is as good an example as anywhere of Australia’s two-speed economy,” Mr Bowe said.

“If there is a One Nation boilover anywhere, I’ve got my eye on that seat,” he said.

Collie grandfather Al Quinton was among the 50 per cent of local people surveyed by The Weekend West who had not yet decided who to vote for on March 11.

He said the major issue in the area was jobs, given big losses in the coal and power sectors.

A realignment of boundaries means the traditional Liberal area of Donnybrook is now part of the electorate.

Lifelong Liberal supporter Sam Licciardello, from Donnybrook Orchard 1 Sixty, said he was reconsidering his vote.

He said the Liberal Government had ignored farmers in the mining boom, and continued to deny support, despite expecting it to provide jobs to those displaced by the downturn.

He is concerned the Liberal plan to privatise Western Power would lift electricity prices, which already cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

“Farmers are the forgotten people,” he said.