In a move that will surely strike fear into the hearts of wokesters everywhere, One Nation has named investment banker Mike Newman as its New South Wales leader and first lower house candidate for the March 2027 state election. Pauline Hanson is scheduled to make the announcement official at a press conference on Friday, alongside Newman, who is the son of former ABC chair Maurice Newman.

Newman, a former trade bureaucrat in Asia, will contest the Hunter seat of Cessnock, a Labor stronghold held for 38 years. One Nation has also previously announced Stuart Bonds as its first upper house candidate.

In an interview with News24, Newman outlined the party's NSW policy platform, which includes halving payroll tax, eliminating it entirely in regional areas, freezing the number of public servants, and introducing 'private sector style KPIs' for 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,' Newman said, presumably to the delight of anyone who has ever dealt with a builder.

Newman spent 25 years in Japan, including three years as Investment NSW's senior trade and investment commissioner in Tokyo. When asked about reaching migrant communities, he pointed to his Japanese wife and Indian business partners as evidence that One Nation is not racist, adding, 'I don't really see that.'

On the topic of social cohesion, Newman was refreshingly direct: 'We're going to get rid of wokery, right?' Because nothing says social cohesion like declaring war on a vaguely defined cultural phenomenon.

Meanwhile, incumbent Labor MP Clayton Barr won the two-party preferred vote in 2023 against One Nation by a margin of 23.4%, after the Nationals disendorsed their candidate. But One Nation is polling at 25% in NSW, according to a Sydney Morning Herald Resolve poll from July, edging out the Coalition's 23% but still trailing Labor's 29%. So there's that.