{"id":871067,"date":"2026-08-28T05:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T05:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871067\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T05:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T05:08:13","slug":"one-nations-new-nsw-leader-mike-newman-is-an-investment-banker-who-wants-to-get-rid-of-wokery-one-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871067\/","title":{"rendered":"One Nation\u2019s new NSW leader Mike Newman is an investment banker who wants to \u2018get rid of wokery\u2019 | One Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Nation has named Mike Newman, an investment banker, as its New South Wales<\/a> leader and first lower house candidate ahead of the March 2027 state election.<\/p>\n

Pauline Hanson held a press conference alongside Newman on Friday morning to announce the son of former ABC chair Maurice Newman<\/a> as her party\u2019s candidate for the Hunter seat of Cessnock.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s right across the issues of NSW, regardless of the fact he\u2019s been living in Japan for the last 25 years \u2026 he\u2019s always kept his eye on politics here in Australia,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cPremier [Chris] Minns, he\u2019s really got a fight on his hands now.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Nation previously announced former federal candidate Stuart Bonds as its first upper house candidate in NSW.<\/p>\n

Newman, a former trade bureaucrat in Asia, confirmed his candidacy in an interview with News24.<\/p>\n

He noted the party\u2019s NSW policy platform included reducing payroll tax by half, cutting it completely in regional areas, freezing the number of public servants and bringing in \u201cprivate sector style KPIs [key performance indicators] into the public service, especially amongst the senior executives\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you say you\u2019re going to build 20,000 homes, if you don\u2019t build 20,000 homes, you don\u2019t get paid,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n

Newman\u2019s time in Japan included three years as Investment NSW\u2019s senior trade and investment commissioner in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

In her first speech to the federal parliament in 1996, Hanson<\/a> claimed: \u201cWe are in danger of being swamped by Asians.\u201d Asked about Hanson\u2019s previous opposition to Asian migration, Newman said he did not think the party would struggle to reach different communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I mean, my wife\u2019s Japanese, so if I thought for even a fleeting second that [One Nation] were racist \u2013 all my business partners are Indians who are absolutely patriotic Aussies, I don\u2019t really see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Nation\u2019s federal leader Pauline Hanson on Thursday. Photograph: Pip Farquharson\/AAP<\/p>\n

Referencing Hanson\u2019s calls for Australia to be a \u201cmonoculture\u201d, Newman said Japan and Korea were \u201cmonoculture[s]\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c[They\u2019re] absolutely super successful nations who pride themselves on that thing. If I ever thought that One Nation was racist or any of these sorts of things, why would I join it? I mean, it\u2019s \u2026 almost hypocritical of me to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Hanson\u2019s inability to remember the name of the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in a News24 documentary was \u201can on-the-spot sort of moment\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe knows who Prime Minister Takaichi is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked what the party\u2019s plan was to foster social cohesion, Newman said: \u201cWe\u2019re going to get rid of wokery, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

At Friday\u2019s press conference with Hanson, federal One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce and Bonds, Newman was asked a question in Japanese, and answered in the language before translating into English.<\/p>\n

Since 2024, Newman has worked as the chief representative for North Asia for HunterNet Co-op, which describes itself as an \u201ceffective networking organisation for business in the Newcastle Hunter region\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked on Friday if he had moved to the region from Sydney, he said: \u201cWell, I\u2019m in the region, and to be honest, I\u2019ve been living in Japan for the last 25 years, so I\u2019m not actually [from Sydney], I\u2019ve probably been living in Japan longer than Sydney.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Asked again to confirm if he would move to the Hunter, Newman said: \u201cI\u2019m living in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NSW premier has in recent months focused on the Hunter. At the NSW Labor conference in July<\/a>, while announcing plans to bring train manufacturing back to the Hunter, known for its coal and heavy industries, he said the party needed to \u201cclimb Everest\u201d to stay in power amid the rising threat from Hanson\u2019s party.<\/p>\n

This month, the state and federal governments announced a $2.5bn deal<\/a> to save Tomago, Australia\u2019s largest aluminium smelter, located in the region. On Friday, Joyce criticised the deal, which involved a commitment to deliver 3GW of new renewable energy. Joyce said the party would dump the state\u2019s renewable energy zones.<\/p>\n

Clayton Barr, the current member for Cessnock, which has been held by Labor for 38 years, won the two-party preferred vote in 2023 against One Nation by a margin of 23.4%, after the Nationals disendorsed their candidate.<\/p>\n

The NSW Nationals MP for the seat of Upper Hunter, Dave Layzell, has warned that under optional preferential voting in NSW, a One Nation candidate could split votes, allowing Labor to win his seat, which he holds by a margin of 3.8%.<\/p>\n

One Nation is polling at 25% in NSW, according to a Sydney Morning Herald Resolve poll in July, ahead of the Coalition on 23% with Labor in front at 29%.<\/p>\n

The NSW opposition leader, Kellie Sloane, has suggested she wouldn\u2019t enter a coalition with One Nation but said in June it was too early to discuss a preference deal.<\/p>\n

According to DemosAU polling in June, One Nation\u2019s primary vote was at 37% outside the Sydney area, with Labor at 23% and the Coalition on 19%.<\/p>\n

Asked which seats the party was targeting in NSW, Newman said \u201cevery single one\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bonds, who came second to Labor\u2019s Dan Repacholi in the two-party preferred vote in the seat of Hunter in last year\u2019s federal election, rejected the suggestion that One Nation party members didn\u2019t have a say in preselections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a lie,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Bonds was reported by Channel Nine<\/a> as saying \u201cthe only thing worse than a gay person with power is a woman\u201d. He won 41% of the two-party preferred vote in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Nation has named Mike Newman, an investment banker, as its New South Wales leader and first lower…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-871067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}