Well wind farms are an eyesore, and tend to be more distributed than coal mines. Same with solar, I recall a posting of a group of German houses all with panels. From the comment I gathered it was meant to show how pretty it was, but to me it looked horrible. Sure, panels are shiny when new, but after ten years, when the novelty of the technology has worn off, they will be seen as industrial looking - they won't age rustically like shingles or tiles.
Of course in Australia it would be much better to do mass solar rather than vote-buying subsidies for rooftop systems. There's certainly a lack of political will (otherwise called democracy) and we're not going to see any environmental leadership from the current government.
I wouldn't single out SA, since WA, QLD and Tasmania are all the butt of jokes about being backward (NT and Canberra are ignored). So interestingly, the more populous NSW and Victoria are making the jokes, much like city dwellers always mock townfolk.