On my visit to Newcastle, Singleton and Maitland over the next two days, I am releasing One Nation’s policy for the Hunter.
Given the importance of job skills and lowering unemployment in this region, I am also releasing our Statewide policy for upgrading TAFE.
If elected to the NSW Parliament on 23 March, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will fight to implement an 8-point Hunter Plan:
- Cut electricity bills by $85 per annum by abolishing the NSW Electricity Tax. Plus tender out a State Government contract for reliable baseload power to replace the coal-fired Liddell power station at Muswellbrook (due for closure in 2022) – vital for the region’s energy security and economic development. Unlike Labor and Liberal, One Nation wants a viable future for coal, aluminum and manufacturing jobs in the Hunter.
- Instead of spending $810 million on the Olympic Stadium at Homebush, One Nation will put the money into much-needed capital works and maintenance for regional and country hospitals. This includes a $200 million Hunter Hospital Development Fund.
- The construction of an extra 3,000 commuter car parking spaces in the region over the next two years, funded from One Nation’s $200 million Commuter Car Parking Fund. Priority will be given to overcoming parking deficits at stations such as Broadmeadow, Adamstown, Fassifern and Cardiff and also in the Newcastle CBD.
- Revive the effectiveness of TAFE, ensuring that skill shortages in the Hunter are addressed. Our policy provides greater funding certainty, teacher job security, higher academic standards and performance-based resourcing of TAFE. Under the One Nation plan, technical education in the Hunter will be more responsive to the needs of business.
- Improve Hunter schools by getting the NSW education system back to basics. The State’s schools are going backwards, denying students in the region a fair chance and equal opportunities in life (One Nation’s detailed statements on schools reform can be found at onenation.org.au).
- A comprehensive program for expanding and promoting racing (gallops, harness and dogs) – a key Hunter industry neglected by the NSW Government. In particular, One Nation will provide $18 million additional funding for the greyhound industry, so badly knocked around by the Baird Government ban in 2016. (The full details of our Racing Policy are at onenation.org.au).
- Restore property rights for farmers, allowing them to build the dams and do the land clearing they need to keep their farms financially viable. This is particularly important for the Upper Hunter economy.
- Improve law-and-order in the Hunter by freeing up police resources from so-called ‘quota policing’ to concentrate on frontline responses to actual crime and the arrest of criminals. Quota policing is resented by officers as a waste of resources, forcing them to notch up ‘appearance’ numbers that have nothing to do with crime responsiveness or crime prevention. NSW One Nation will also toughen parole laws so that anyone breaching parole automatically goes back into custody (removing discretion from Parole Board softies).
