One Nation’s new NSW leader Mike Newman is an investment banker who wants to ‘get rid of wokery’

Son of former ABC chair will contest seat of Cessnock in March state election and says ‘my wife’s Japanese’ so he doesn’t believe party is racist

One Nation has named investment banker Mike Newman as its New South Wales leader and first lower house candidate ahead of the March 2027 state election.

Pauline Hanson was to hold a press conference alongside Newman on Friday morning to announce the son of former ABC chair Maurice Newman as her party’s candidate for the Hunter seat of Cessnock.

One Nation previously announced former federal candidate Stuart Bonds as its first upper house candidate in NSW.

In an interview with News24, Newman, a former trade bureaucrat in Asia, confirmed his candidacy.

He noted the party’s NSW policy platform included reducing payroll tax by half, cutting it completely in regional areas, freezing the number of public servants and bringing in “private sector style KPIs [key performance indicators] into the public service, especially amongst the 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.

Newman worked in Japan for 25 years, including three years as Investment NSW’s senior trade and investment commissioner in Tokyo. He said he did not think the party would struggle to reach migrant communities.

“Look, I mean, my wife’s Japanese, so if I thought for even a fleeting second that [One Nation] were racist – all my business partners are Indians who are absolutely patriotic Aussies, I don’t really see that.”

Asked what the party’s plan was to foster social cohesion, Newman said: “We’re going to get rid of wokery, right?”

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.

One Nation is polling at 25% in NSW, according to The Sydney Morning Herald Resolve poll in July, ahead of the Coalition at 23%, with Labor in front at 29%.