Who is Sandra Bourke?

Sandra Bourke is an Australian author from Hawks Nest, New South Wales. She spent thirty years in policing, intelligence and national security before writing To Save a Beach: The Story of Reckless Renewables, published by Connor Court Books.

What is To Save a Beach about?

It is narrative non-fiction. When plans for offshore wind turbines reached Hawks Nest, Sandra Bourke began investigating and travelled the length of the National Electricity Market meeting the families and communities in the path of wind turbines, grid solar, pumped hydro and transmission lines.

When is To Save a Beach published?

It is published by Connor Court Books, released 10 October 2026. ISBN 9781923568969.

Narrative non-fiction from Connor Court Books

To Save
a Beach

The Story of Reckless Renewables

When plans for offshore wind turbines reach Hawks Nest, Sandra Bourke believes she is fighting to save one beach: endangered petrels, migrating whales and the community bound to its shore. Then she discovers a much bigger map of Australia.

Buy the Book →Buy a signed copy Read the chapters

Foreword Chris UhlmannPublisher Connor Court BooksReleased October 2026

Front cover of To Save a Beach: The Story of Reckless Renewables by Sandra Bourke

Back cover of To Save a Beach with the synopsis and author biography

To Save a Beach · Sandra Bourke

The people on the NEM Road

The Australians who dug in

Bruce Murray

Wing Commander, Royal Australian Air Force, retired. Hawks Nest, New South Wales

“In the Air Force, we never remove a system from a jet fighter until its replacement has been proven in service.”

Frank Future

Skipper of the catamaran Imagine, Nelson Bay, Port Stephens

“If this was off Sydney, there would be a riot. They would never wear it off Sydney. So maybe they should put it off Sydney.”

Bill Stinson

Volunteer Secretary, National Rational Energy Network, Sydney

“Farmers, builders, soldiers. I'm just a retired construction project manager trying to help save Australia.”

Professor Stephen Wilson

Energy economist and engineer, Brisbane

“The wind is free. The sun is free. The electricity is not. No one can make energy. You extract it and convert it from one form into another. Every conversion costs. The ball always rolls downhill. When Chris Bowen tells you he can run Australia on free energy, hang on to your wallet.”

Steven Nowakowski

Cartographer and wildlife photographer, Ravenshoe, Far North Queensland

“The same Green activists and politicians who once fought to protect these habitats are now supporting projects that tear them apart. This is hypocrisy of the highest order. We cannot save the environment by destroying it.”

Own image

Therese and Cedric Creed

Fifth generation graziers, Callide Basin, Central Queensland

“This is what they’re really taking.”

Katy McCallum

Kilkivan General Store, President of Let’s Rethink Renewables, Queensland

“I hate losing, but I hate quitting more.”

Author’s image

Grant Piper

Cattle farmer and chair of the National Rational Energy Network, Uarbry near Coolah, NSW

“None of it starts here. It starts in Canberra. Chris Bowen signed us up to a target, and the target came to my valley.”

Subject provided

Amanda De Lore

Retired teacher and Assistant Principal, Illawarra, NSW

“No. This isn't just about the Illawarra any more. If fourteen thousand people can go through a proper consultation, and the government can count every submission, and it still ends up exactly where it planned to be, then this was never a local problem. It's a national one. The fishing families. The whale people. The farmers losing land to transmission corridors. Hunter, Port Stephens, Gippsland. Same fight, different coastline.”

Subject provided

Nathan Lidgett

Fifth generation farmer, Myrniong, Victoria

“Private property is not private anymore, if other organisations have the ability to cut your chain on your gate and walk in.”

Mary Morris

Retired science teacher and farmer, Eudunda, Mid North, South Australia

“People think we're fighting turbines. We're not. We're trying to hold regulators accountable to rules that are already there and being ignored. Environmental authorities are turning a blind eye to environmental damage, letting developers do whatever they want. We're fighting the fact that no one is listening, or that if they are, they don't care.”

Dr Adi Paterson AO

Chief Executive of ANSTO 2009 to 2020, Chair of Nuclear for Australia, Sutherland, NSW

“The physics won’t change. I am not sure I will see it.”

Sharon Kuperholz

Community leader, J-COM Events Melbourne, Prahran, Victoria

“The government and most of the media have told Jewish Australians to sit down, shut up and put up with it. The Greens help. They dress up hostility as activism and intimidation as democracy because they approve of the people doing it. It is disgraceful, and we will not be silent.”

Author’s image

From the foreword

Hawks Nest is hers. This book is the story of what happened when a line on a government planning map crossed it. And of what happened when Sandra decided to contest their plans.

Chris Uhlmann, journalist and political commentator, from his foreword

A career in public service. Then a line on a map.

Sandra Bourke is in her third year of contesting the reckless rollout of renewables, which began when an offshore wind zone was declared off her beach at Hawks Nest, New South Wales. She spent most of her career in public service, including the Australian Federal Police, the National Crime Authority and Defence. To Save a Beach - The Story of Reckless Renewables is her first book.

Sandra Bourke

Her story →Book Sandra

PublisherConnor Court Books

Foreword byChris Uhlmann

FormatPaperback

ISBN9781923568969

In the media

Sandra in the media

All coverage and the media kit

Sandra Bourke at CPAC 2026 Launch

Video, October 2026

Book Signing with Author Suzi Smeed (Chapter 18 - The Undercurrent)

Watch

Backyard Bothy

Podcast, October 2026

"If ever there was a book to buy, this is it. Sandra has travelled the nation talking to Communities far and wide."

Read

CPAC Australia

Video

Sandra Bourke at CPAC 2024, Brisbane

Watch

Next appearance

Where Sandra is speaking

6Nov

Local Book Launch - The Red Lion Pub, Ballarat VIC

4pm · Nicholas Room, The Red Lion Pub, 217-229 Main Road, Ballarat VIC 3350

Come and meet Nathan Lidgett. Chapter 15 tells his story. Nathan is a fifth-generation farmer at Myrniong. He is one of the landholders standing against AusNet's Western Renewables Link. The project is 454 steel towers up to eighty metres high, with a cleared strip a hundred metres wide running 190 kilometres from Bulgana to Sydenham. It cuts through 222 private properties. The chapter follows the fight from the first letters in 2020 to the tractors at Parliament House and into the courts. If you've had AusNet at your gate, this book is for you. Sandra and Nathan will give a short presentation and a reading from the book and the people in it. Then it's over to you for nibbles, a cold drink and great conversation with the people who lived these stories. Everyone welcome.

All upcoming appearances

The next book

Two Tree Hill

Two Tree Hill is the road Australia is on - divided, angry, irreconcilable? Sandra’s second book is coming in 2027.

About Two Tree Hill

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To Savea Beach