Hanson named Mike Newman to lead One Nation in NSW

On Friday, 28 August, Pauline Hanson named former NSW investment commissioner Mike Newman as One Nation’s New South Wales leader for the 27 March 2027 state election. He will contest Labor-held Cessnock in the Hunter. The ABC, the Guardian, and the Newcastle Herald all filed the announcement.

Newman told the ABC he wants the state more like Texas and Florida: reverse uranium-mining bans, invest in coal and nuclear, slash regulation. “We want to get cheap energy, just like Florida and Texas, back into New South Wales to help make businesses more competitive,” he said. He called the planned Eraring closure “economic suicide” and said he would be happy to host a nuclear plant and a nuclear waste dump in the Hunter, subject to public consultation.

He opposes the state’s $12 billion bid to revive train manufacturing in the Hunter. His reply, on the ABC, is that the trains could be built in the Hunter for $3 billion with foreign investment — Korean low-interest finance was his example — and that the manufacturing would occur in the Hunter. Labor holds Cessnock on a 23 percent margin. Stuart Bonds was named the upper-house candidate the same day.

The object is a former commissioner on a Cessnock ballot paper. Newman spent three years as Investment NSW’s senior trade and investment commissioner in Tokyo, appointed in 2021 when John Barilaro still had the trade portfolio, covering Japan and Korea. He has lived outside the state for about twenty-five years. Since 2024 he has been chief representative for North Asia for HunterNet, the Newcastle Hunter industry network. He is the son of former ABC chair Maurice Newman. Hanson, standing him up in the Hunter on Friday, put the distance in the same sentence as the pitch. “He’s right across the issues of NSW, regardless of the fact he’s been living in Japan for the last 25 years … he’s always kept his eye on politics here in Australia,” she said. “Premier Minns, he’s really got a fight on his hands now.”

Cessnock is not a soft landing. Labor has held it almost exclusively since 1927. It went Liberal for a single term in 1988 and then went home. Clayton Barr has the seat now. In 2023, after the Nationals disendorsed their candidate, Barr’s two-party margin against One Nation was 23.4 percent. The Newcastle Herald put the present Labor margin at 23 percent. Optional preferential voting in New South Wales makes the arithmetic less like a federal contest and more like a local one. Dave Layzell, the Nationals MP for Upper Hunter, has already warned that a One Nation candidate can split a conservative vote in a seat he holds by 3.8 percent. Newman, asked which seats the party was targeting, told the Guardian “every single one.”

The energy lines are why this desk is in the Hunter and not only in the biography. Eraring sits on Lake Macquarie, four units, 2.9 gigawatts, Australia’s largest station, about a quarter of New South Wales. Origin has told AEMO the plant will run through 30 April 2029. AEMO’s 2026 statement has New South Wales breaching its reliability benchmark from 2030-31 on the conservative assessment. Newman called the closure plan “economic suicide.” He wants coal and nuclear in the mix, uranium-mining bans reversed, the state’s renewable energy zones dumped. Joyce, on the same tour, said: “We want the REZs dead and buried in the swamps with the mammoths.” Newman’s California comparison was on the ABC tape. “In California, which runs a very heavy net zero, very left-wing kind of style of government, since COVID they’ve lost 1.2 million people who’ve fled to other states,” he said. “Now they’re all in Texas because of cheap energy and low taxes.” Then the Florida-and-Texas sentence that will follow him to March.

On nuclear he did not dodge the waste question. He said he would be happy to host a plant and a dump in the Hunter, subject to public consultation. “The Labor government run the three-eyed fish narrative, which is the low-resolution politics we should expect,” he said. “I’ve worked very closely with the entire nuclear supply chain. I know how well and effectively it is all managed.” One Nation has not named a site, a cost, or a year. The Commonwealth bans in the 1998 radiation act and the 1999 environment act still have to move before a New South Wales premier can pour civil nuclear concrete. Newman’s offer is a location in principle. It is also, in a coal region that already lives with large industrial plant, a different kind of permission structure than a city seminar. Public consultation is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It will have to.

The train argument is the other Hunter fight, and it is already on the record in both directions. The Minns government has put a $12 billion bid on the table to revive train manufacturing in the Hunter, with a state-owned factory run by a private manufacturer, starting with replacement Tangara sets. The government talks about 550 ongoing jobs; some briefings have run as high as 780 construction jobs plus the factory and supply chain. Teralba and the Broadmeadow Locomotive Depot have been shortlisted. Regional Transport Minister Jenny Aitchison, who holds Maitland, went at Newman on Friday. “One Nation’s new leader wants to represent the Hunter, but Mr Newman and his party don’t seem to think there is a future for train manufacturing in the Hunter,” she said. “They talk big game about Australian jobs, but when we make the decision to bring jobs home, they want to send them back overseas.”

Newman’s reply is a different number and a different capital stack. “We could partner with the Korean government, as an example, and they could help fund the infrastructure, where they could provide extremely low-interest loans to be able to build that infrastructure,” he said. “But the manufacturing, 100 per cent of it would occur in the Hunter.” Three billion, not twelve. No business case has been released. No Korean agency has signed. Labor’s figure covers a factory and generations of fleet; One Nation has not published what its three billion includes. The two numbers are not yet a like-for-like. They are a fight about who builds trains in a valley that used to build everything, and they will run until March.

The rest of the platform is a business-first list with payroll tax at the top. Newman has promised to remove payroll tax for regional businesses and halve it in the city. “The message we hear out in the market is always the same thing: ‘We’d like to hire more people, but we’re sort of playing off against how much payroll tax we may or may not have to pay,’” he said. He has talked about freezing the number of public servants and putting private-sector KPIs on senior executives. “If you say you’re going to build 20,000 homes, if you don’t build 20,000 homes, you don’t get paid.” Cost of living, housing, and “the neglect of our industries under Labor” are the issues he named for the campaign. A Resolve poll for the Sydney Morning Herald in July had One Nation at 25 percent in New South Wales, ahead of the Coalition on 23, Labor on 29. DemosAU in June had the party at 37 percent outside the Sydney area, Labor 23, the Coalition 19. Opposition leader Kellie Sloane has said she would not enter a coalition with One Nation and that it was too early to talk preferences.

Friday also had the moment the cameras wanted. A Japanese journalist asked about business confidence. Newman started in Japanese. Hanson cut in: “I think everyone else might appreciate (English).” “I’ll translate after. I’ll translate right after,” he said, and did. He has been asked whether he lives in the seat. “Well, I’m in the region, and to be honest, I’ve been living in Japan for the last 25 years,” he said. Pressed, he said he was “living in the region.” “I’m not working just for the seat of Cessnock,” he said. “I’m working for the whole of NSW and rest assured we are going to bring prosperity to these regions by rational sensible economics.”

Stuart Bonds, the Hunter coal miner and cattle farmer, leads the upper-house ticket. He came second to Labor’s Dan Repacholi on two-party preferred in the federal seat of Hunter in 2025, with 41 percent. He is 40. He said he would campaign on primary industries. The pairing is the point: a former Tokyo commissioner in Cessnock, a local miner in the Legislative Council, Hanson and Joyce on the road, Eraring on the lake, a March 2027 writ.

What happens next is a campaign, not a government. Newman has to win a 23-point Labor seat, or get close enough that the upper house and a few regional contests change the arithmetic in Macquarie Street. He has named cheap energy, a nuclear conversation, a cheaper train build, and a payroll-tax cut. He has not named a reactor site or published the three-billion train case. 28 August is the date. 2027 is the election. The quotes are his, on the ABC. A former commissioner on a Cessnock ballot paper is the object. The first local booth will be reported when there is one.