Pauline Hanson picks investment banker Mike Newman to lead One Nation into the NSW election

Labor’s near century long stranglehold on Cessnock faces an existential threat as investment banker Mike Newman steps up as One Nation’s leader for the 2027 New South Wales election. Newman will launch a direct assault on the Hunter seat Labor has taken for granted since 1927, backed by a ticket featuring hard hitting coal miner and cattle farmer Stuart Bonds leading the party in the upper house.

One Nation’s New South Wales president, Rebecca Thompson, confirmed to One News on Thursday that the party would officially unveil its two lead state candidates on Friday.

The Minns government has every reason to panic. One Nation stormed into second place in Cessnock at the 2023 state election with 15.27% of the vote, smashing the Nationals while the Liberals surrendered and failed to even field a candidate.

Finance heavy hitter Mike Newman brings global experience to target Labor's economic failures

Mike Newman brings formidable international financial muscle to the fight, following 25 years in Japanese finance and three years spent promoting New South Wales across North Asia.

Newman built an elite career in Tokyo. Armed with degrees in economics and Japanese studies as well as a Master of Management from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, he moved to Japan as a sales executive with Nikko Securities. He built his reputation as an aerospace and defence analyst for ABN AMRO between London and Tokyo from 1999 to 2003, stepped up as head of sales for HSBC Securities in 2004, and served from 2007 to 2015 as division director and country head of Macquarie Capital Securities Japan.

Returning to Sydney in 2015, Newman founded his own advisory firm, Ginga Vale Investments, building high level commercial networks between Sydney, Tokyo, and Seoul. He then spent three years aggressively promoting the state as senior trade and investment commissioner for North Asia at Investment NSW, based in Tokyo. That key economic role was established under the Coalition government, only to be foolishly axed by the incoming Minns Labor government in 2024.

"Mike is another great addition for One Nation," Hanson said in comments confirming the appointments on Thursday night. "He has decades of experience in finance across a range of industries and is very well credentialed."

Newman launched a scathing attack on Labor's economic failures, making clear his campaign will hit Labor hard on skyrocketing living costs, housing failures, and the systematic abandoning of regional communities.

"We need to make NSW competitive again," he said. "We'll be focusing on issues like the cost of living, our housing crisis and the neglect of our regional communities and rural industries under Labor."

He also took dead aim at the culture of bloated state bureaucracy that has thrived under Labor rule.

"So in a sense, we have a reverse democracy now, where unelected bureaucrats are running the show and ministers are invariably just conduits to push through the legislation," he told former deputy prime minister John Anderson in an interview in February.

In that same interview, Newman exposed how federal public service numbers blew out by 135,000 people to reach 385,000 workers. He labelled it "a 54% increase in the number of bureaucrats at the federal level," while warning that Australia "is ranked number one in terms of bureaucrats per head of population," and pointing out that departmental secretaries are pocketing "as near as makes no difference a million dollars a year".

The Daily Telegraph reports Newman is 54 and is the son of Maurice Newman, who sat on the ABC board from 2000 to 2004 and chaired it from January 2007 to March 2012. One News has not independently confirmed the family connection.

One Nation surges past Nationals in Cessnock to mount a direct assault on the Labor seat

Labor candidate Clayton Barr has held Cessnock since 2011, sitting on a seat Labor has locked down continuously since 1927, apart from a single brief term when Liberal Bob Roberts held it from 1988 to 1991. But Labor’s century long reign is looking remarkably fragile as local support erodes under the weight of state government failures.

The remaining primary votes splintered across smaller minor parties, with the Greens scraping together 6.59%, the Animal Justice Party picking up 4.06%, and Sustainable Australia taking 2.30%, out of 52,781 total formal votes. Crucially, One Nation established itself as the undisputed primary opposition force on the right, finishing 2,182 votes ahead of the Nationals.

This political realignment comes as One Nation charges straight into deep seated Hunter grievances that One News has tracked extensively. Local fury is boiling over Labor's controversial decision to cap the state gun buyback at a miserly $600 per firearm while stripping law abiding owners of their right of appeal. At the same time, regional workers remain fiercely critical of the $2.5 billion bailout for the Tomago aluminium smelter, a move Pauline Hanson slammed as a desperate band aid covering up the economic fallout of Labor's own net zero agenda.

Stuart Bonds, upper house candidate, exposes growing regional anger at Labor anti mining agenda

Bonds exposed the deep vulnerabilities in Labor’s regional firewall when he seized a staggering 21.59% of the vote in the Hunter in 2019, marking the first time One Nation even contested the seat.

Running federally in the Hunter, Bonds commanded 22,029 first preferences, delivering an explosive 21.59% swing out of nowhere. While Labor veteran Joel Fitzgibbon managed to hold on, the backlash against his party was brutal. Labor’s primary vote collapsed by 14.22 percentage points down to a pathetic 37.57%, with Bonds finishing third and trailing the Nationals by a razor thin 1,913 votes.

"Our primary industries like mining and agriculture are under ever-increasing pressure," Bonds said. "One Nation backs our miners and our farmers. We back our regional communities."

At the 2023 state election, One Nation did not field a candidate in Upper Hunter, a neighbouring electorate that the Nationals hold by a fragile 3.78% margin after preferences. Demonstrating their intent to tear open Labor’s regional flank, a media alert from the party confirmed Hanson will officially announce the candidate lineup at 10am on Friday in Singleton, located squarely inside Upper Hunter rather than Cessnock.

Surging regional polling threatens Labor minority government as voters desert Minns policies

Labor’s grip on power is slipping rapidly as a devastating DemosAU poll of 1,038 New South Wales voters, conducted between 15 and 18 June, exposed a massive wave of voter anger moving entirely against the government.

Labor’s primary support cratered by 2 percentage points down to 32%, while One Nation surged 6 points up to 27%, driving the Coalition down 3 points to a distant 20%. In the upper house, the collapse of legacy party support was just as brutal, putting Labor on 30%, One Nation on 27%, and the Coalition trailing at 20%.

The crisis for Chris Minns deepens outside the Sydney basin, where One Nation leads outright on a massive 37%, leaving Labor stranded on 23% and the Coalition on 19%. Cessnock and Upper Hunter sit directly inside this hostile regional footprint. A separate Resolve Strategic poll in July confirmed the severe threat to Labor, placing One Nation second on 25% behind Labor’s 29%, while the Coalition slumped to third on 23%.

One Nation has never won a seat in the New South Wales lower house and has never put forward a state leader until now. Hanson emphasised that Newman’s background as senior trade and investment commissioner for North Asia "will give him a unique perspective as an MP".

Storming Cessnock would put Newman straight into the Legislative Assembly as parliamentary leader on the floor of the chamber where governments are formed, transforming him into a direct candidate for premier rather than an outside critic. Taking the premiership remains a steep challenge requiring 47 of the 93 seats. One Nation currently holds zero, while a weakened Labor party won just 45 seats in 2023 and clings to a fragile minority government backed by three independents.

New South Wales operates under optional preferential voting, which determines whether a massive primary vote translates into actual parliamentary seats. Because voters have the power to number a single box and stop, preferences do not flow automatically as they do in federal elections, meaning Labor cannot rely on preference fallbacks to rescue its failing regional candidates.

From standing start to direct attack on Labor regional heartland in key election battle

One Nation has executed a tactical divide and conquer strategy designed to strip Labor of its regional base. State President Rebecca Thompson will control organisational strategy behind closed doors, unleashing Mike Newman as the public face to aggressively prosecute Labor's failures directly to voters between now and March.

At this stage, One Nation doesn't hold any seats in the NSW parliament, but by launching its highest profile candidate directly into Cessnock, the party intends to shatter Labor’s century long hold over the region and permanently break the Minns minority government.