Pauline Hanson announced that former NSW investment commissioner Mike Newman will lead One Nation to the 2027 state election, and he’s already promising to reverse bans on uranium mining, back coal-fired and nuclear power, and slash regulations for business.
That’s the pitch. Cheap energy for the bosses, fewer rules for the bosses, and a state remade to suit the people with capital. Newman will also contest the Labor-held seat of Cessnock in the Hunter Valley, where Labor has held the seat almost exclusively since 1927 and still holds it with a majority of more than 23 per cent.
Who Gets the Power
Newman said he wants New South Wales to be more like Florida and Texas. He said he would like to see less business regulation and greater investment in non-renewable forms of energy. “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. We want to get cheap energy, just like Florida and Texas, back into New South Wales to help make businesses more competitive.”
That’s the frame: people reduced to labor costs, energy policy reduced to a subsidy for business competition, and public life narrowed to what helps capital move faster. Newman described the plan to close the Eraring coal-fired power station as “economic suicide” and said coal and nuclear should be part of the state’s future energy mix.
He also said he would be happy to host both a nuclear power plant and nuclear waste 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,” Newman said. “I've worked very closely with the entire nuclear supply chain. I know how well and effectively it is all managed.”
Who Pays for the Plan
The people in the Hunter are being told to carry the risk while politicians and business interests talk about “prosperity.” Newman said the party would focus on a business-first agenda. That included a promise to remove payroll tax for businesses operating in the regions and halving the tax for those in metropolitan areas.
“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,'” Newman said.
That’s the old trick. Cut the public’s leverage, hand more room to employers, and call it opportunity. The costs don’t vanish. They get pushed downward, onto workers and communities expected to absorb the fallout while the top gets to talk about “competitiveness.”
The party has also promised to abandon the state’s renewable energy zones, or REZs. Barnaby Joyce said, “We want the REZs dead and buried in the swamps with the mammoths.”
What They Call Development
Before Newman can deliver on any of his promises, he has to win Cessnock. The seat has been held almost exclusively by Labor since 1927, although it fell into Liberal hands for a single term in 1988. Labor holds it with a majority of more than 23 per cent, up from 19.7 per cent in 2019.
Newman was asked whether he would be living in the electorate while campaigning for the seat. “Im 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. I'm meeting with the locals, I'm meeting with people and talking about all these issues.” When pressed, Newman said he was “living in the region.”
The language is polished. The structure isn’t. A party leader promises to reshape energy policy, strip regulations, and erase renewable zones while asking voters in a Labor stronghold to trust that “prosperity” will trickle down from a business-first agenda.
Newman has already drawn fire from the state government over his opposition to its $12 billion bid to revive train manufacturing in the Hunter, which it says will create 550 ongoing jobs. Regional Transport Minister Jenny Aitchison said, “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 said he opposed the government’s plan because the trains could be built in the Hunter for $3 billion with foreign investment. “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.”
So the fight is laid out in plain terms. One side offers a $12 billion state-backed plan and 550 ongoing jobs. The other offers cheaper financing, foreign partnership, and a promise that the manufacturing would stay in the Hunter. Either way, the people at the bottom are told to wait while the powerful argue over who gets to direct the machine.