‘Clean energy journey is ours for the taking’: The pro-renewables past of NSW One Nation leader revealed

November 9, 2026 — 5:00am

One Nation’s leader in NSW for years spruiked the benefits of renewables in the Hunter region, declaring as recently as last year that “the clean energy journey is ours for the taking” while complaining Australia’s rollout of renewable energy was too slow.

Mike Newman, who plans to run in the electorate of Cessnock, has made energy policy One Nation’s signature focus since his surprise appointment as the right-wing party’s NSW leader in August.

One Nation has promised to “get rid of every bit of net zero legislation and regulation that is killing our industries” within 100 days if elected in March, while Newman has attacked Labor for its “renewables obsession” and labelled the rollout of clean energy and Renewable Energy Zones as an “abject failure”.

Newman, a former Macquarie banker and trade commissioner, presented a far more nuanced view of the energy transition in the past, as well as promoting a Clean Energy Precinct at the Port of Newcastle which has received more than $100 million in state and federal funding to accelerate the rollout of renewables.

While at times critical of climate policies such as electric vehicle subsidies, in speeches, social media posts and articles, Newman previously touted the commercial benefits of the renewables transition, welcoming announcements such as the 220-hectare Clean Energy Precinct and highlighting projects on his social media on the basis they would “promote alternatives from fossil fuels”.

In 2023, Newman presented at a hydrogen power conference in Seoul in which he predicted “a lot more momentum behind our renewable energy” following the release of the Minns government’s review of the NSW electricity network that year.

“We believe will see a real speed up of the investment pathway and also support mechanisms to really get renewable energy to support very much the large-scale projects which are in NSW,” he said in a speech, showing a slide of the Renewable Energy Zones which spruiked their “potential for large-scale production”.

Those and other comments contrast with some of his doomsayer rhetoric since joining One Nation. In 2024, Newman compared the clean energy transition to caring for a Japanese bonsai tree, writing on LinkedIn that both required “experience, capability, patience, the ability to forecast the life cycle and knowing the limitations of pruning the existing structure too early”.

The comment offers a neat summary of the One Nation leader’s commentary on renewables in the recent past, which appears to show someone aware of the investment opportunities presented by clean energy but frustrated by government inertia.

Newman said there had been “no change whatsoever” in his position on renewable energy, and likened his past comments, during which he was a trade commissioner or contracted to the Port of Newcastle, to being a “salesman”.

“I was doing my job serving the people of NSW,” he said. “My feeling on renewables is irrelevant. If I’ve got a customer, I’m going to sell to them. If I was a Mercedes dealer and I thought the convertible looks best in obsidian black, but the customer wants lime green, am I going to tell them, ‘No you can’t have it?’

“I’m agnostic. If my customer wants something, I’m not going to say no, even if I fundamentally disagree with it.”

In the past, the One Nation leader has appeared more frustrated with the slow rollout of clean energy than government funding supporting it. In June last year, he wrote the collapse of the Gladstone hydrogen project had presented a “Stephen Bradbury opportunity” for NSW.

“For sectors that are critical to the Hunter and more broadly, NSW, the clean energy journey is ours for the taking,” he wrote.

Far from ridiculing the clean energy rollout, Newman has labelled Japanese and South Korean government investment in hydrogen as “a clean energy export opportunity which one would imagine leaves the Hunter and Port of Newcastle in a good position”, while also relaying concerns from North Asia that “our renewable energy deployment is too slow, uncompetitive and poorly designed”.

Despite that, he said, “the Japanese see the Hunter as the best location to execute the clean energy transition in Australia”.

Newman previously touted the benefits of using a mix of so-called “green” and “blue” hydrogen – produced from renewables and fossil fuel sources respectively – to take advantage of investment from Japan and South Korea.

In an article in February last year, Newman said those governments were “very much committed to the hydrogen economy” and urged NSW ministers to meet their counterparts in Seoul and Tokyo to get projects “up and running”.

While NSW did not have enough renewable energy in the grid to make green hydrogen immediately commercial, he argued, there was the potential for mixed-use power that would eventually see coal phased out of hydrogen production.

“If we started with a blended 80 per cent coal 20 per cent renewable stepped out to 50/50 by 2035, 70/30 by 2040 and 100/0 by 2045 with mutually agreed milestones, the industry could make this happen with government,” he wrote at the time.

Newman was actively involved in promoting investment in clean energy at the Port of Newcastle. His email signature from September last year described himself as the “Clean Energy Senior Counsel” for the port. In 2024, when NSW minister for the Hunter, Yasmin Catley announced the next stage of the precinct, Newman congratulated the port on LinkedIn.

Though he was not an employee, he was engaged as a consultant to help the port navigate hydrogen investment from Japan and South Korea in its Clean Energy Precinct.

In September 2024, he met NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe in what her diary disclosures state was a discussion about the “clean energy market”. The meeting involved Newman spruiking hydrogen investment, this masthead has confirmed.

But Newman denied One Nation’s commitment to removing the emissions reduction infrastructure in NSW – including Renewable Energy Zones – would cripple the same investment he previously courted.

The Clean Energy Precinct he previously promoted has received significant funding from both the state and federal governments to help the port become a hub for the production, storage, distribution and export of clean energy products, including green hydrogen. Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said last year it would “establish the Hunter region as an industry leader in Australia’s transformation to net zero”.

Newman said removing government funding would “harm investment in renewables”, but that the sector was “a grifter’s paradise”.

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