00:07If I was Richard Marles, what would you be saying to me right now?
00:11I would be saying, this is Newcastle and watch us over the next ten years.
00:16We need your support as well.
00:18Have federal politicians too often looked at Sydney and not enough at some of the bigger
00:23other towns and cities in New South Wales?
00:25That's exactly how we feel in Newcastle.
00:27We've always felt like we're that city north of Sydney and that's why I want us to be looked
00:32upon as the regional capital of northern New South Wales.
00:36We see grants and funding and support for Sydney at the blink of an eye, money at levels that
00:45we can only dream of here in Newcastle and what we could do with some of those funds.
00:50Tell me about your farm.
00:51We milk about 300 cows all year round.
00:56Supply most of the milk goes to the Sydney domestic market and it's a family farm.
01:02There's my brother and myself and my mother's still involved and our wives as well.
01:06Are you optimistic for farming or do you worry about the younger generation of farmers coming
01:13through?
01:14I really worry for a generation, especially if you're a generation coming through on a
01:18family farm.
01:21Land's got that expensive now that it's very hard to just, if you've got a few children,
01:26it's very hard to handle over without, you know, one of them, you know, if one of them's
01:30working in town, it's very hard to say, oh yeah, you're getting nothing and the other person's
01:33getting a farm worth a few million dollars.
01:35Like, we're very asset rich but cash poor.
01:38Once upon a time, governments used to support us and we used to, you know, like you could
01:43ring up somebody and they come and assist you.
01:46Now they, now they just seem to be that they just want to attack you, you know, more expenses.
01:54Yeah.
01:54Newcastle is a really fabulous working class region.
01:58We love supporting each other, we love lifting each other up.
02:01Really generous, resilient community, I've lived in many other cities and I've always
02:07come back.
02:07And I think if I were to speak to the Premier or the Prime Minister, I would say, come here,
02:12make your decisions with our regional community.
02:16What would you say people that you meet are most anxious about, what's their top concern?
02:21I mean, housing affordability is a massive problem here, I know it is across the board
02:27as well.
02:27What are some of the good things about this area, what do you love about here?
02:29Oh, the people, like we are a union town, like a really, really community minded region.
02:37I moved here 30 years ago and that was the thing that actually attracted me and I decided
02:42I'm going to stay here because of that.
02:44What are some of the big challenges, what do you think is the biggest challenge facing this
02:46area?
02:48Well, the transition, you know, the transition.
02:52We're currently, and we're way behind the eight ball, you know, I think what we were talking
02:57earlier on is that, you know, we spent two decades of culture wars, splitting our regions,
03:03dividing workplaces, dividing working communities.
03:05And it's been political wrangling over issues that really don't really mean anything to workers
03:12on the ground, other than we need secure jobs and continued prosperity.
03:17It's a real thrill to be in a place like this, you can roll up the sleeves and really to
03:21lead, I suppose, that evolution that we see in front of us.
03:25We've always done it on our own and not depended upon others.
03:29My dad, who's a bit of a historian, would always tell me about a successionist movement
03:34of the Hunter and what if we became our own state like WA with our strong resources and
03:39what that would mean, but that means that there's an incredibly strong regional identity
03:43and pride as we again go through change.
03:46It is an identity change, so how do we keep those strengths and things that we're really
03:51proud of about our energy and resources, how do you transform that into the future is really
03:55what the question is and we're all working together to seize that.
03:58We always made stuff and we always expected no one to watch us when we did it.
04:03And so that kind of creativity born of industry is now coming out in arts and writing
04:09and music.
04:10We still make stuff, we just make different stuff.
04:13When I first came to Newcastle, there were corners and pockets that were still industrial
04:18and gritty and dirty and it felt different and real and individual.
04:23And I worry about everyone trying to polish it up and shine it up, but I think it still
04:28has that industrial chippiness, that sense of resilience and that self-determination that
04:34comes from surviving earthquakes and industry closures and all those kind of things.
Comments