Kirsty O’Connell enters the fray as Independent in upcoming by-election

ABERDEEN farmer and Friends of the Upper Hunter advocate, Kirsty O’Connell, has entered the fray and will run as an independent in the race for the Upper Hunter seat.

Ms O’Connell said she agonised about whether to run since she already had a job she enjoys and a young family to look after. However, after seeing the lineup for the May 22 by-election, she believed it was too important an opportunity to miss out on.

See below for more stories on Kirsty.

Many know Ms O’Connell for her strong advocacy in air quality and finding a future after mines through her advocacy work as voluntary secretary with Friends of the Upper Hunter.

“There needs to be a local member who cares about the issues in the Hunter. It’s important to balance the mining industry with other industries. I want the government to pause on new mining in the area. This isn’t about closing every mine overnight, not at all. The world is changing, whether we like it or not, we have customers overseas reducing their demand,” Ms O’Connell said.

When in the future, the market bottoms out of the mining industry, Ms O’Connell says she wants to position the region strongly for a post-coal future.

“If the pandemic has shown us anything, it’s about being more independent, more self-reliant. We need to take action and map opportunities for growth. That could look like creating growth in agriculture, food, wine, tourism and horse breeding. We already do those things well. Let’s find out how we can enable employers in those sectors to immediately create growth.

“It won’t all be about money or capital. Maybe they’ll need policy and cultural changes, support from regulators so let’s understand that future and act on it.

“One of my biggest fears is that the government’s solution to coal transitioning is that they’ll say, ‘let’s find the next big, dirty industry and dump it in the Hunter’. That is not what we need as a community. We need the next clean industry, we need to think about economic diversity. We cannot be beholden to one industry. We need to invest across a wide variety of industries.

“The pandemic has transformed the way we work. I’ve worked remotely for some time in my job as a consultant, working from my farm. We can be attracting income from people earning from a variety of sources outside the Hunter. They’ll be spending their income at home. We should be targeting regionalisation.

“I’ve talked to so many people who have done just that. So the pandemic has freed a lot of people up who are country people, living in the city, it’s freed them up to return to the country. I’ve been talking with real estate agents long before nominating. They cannot keep up with demand for people wanting to buy country properties.

“Let’s make sure the Upper Hunter is as attractive as possible to keep people coming. This is another thing we haven’t made the most of yet. We have amazing alumni of people who are connected to the Hunter. We have business leaders, hugely successful investors, we have inventors, we have amazing people who are connected to this area by birth or owning property. We should be involving that entire network.”

“I don’t think there could be anything more powerful than putting an independent into the state parliament who can hold the balance of power until the next state election,” she said.

More stories with comment from Kirsty O’Connell:

• Why Malcolm Turnbull is backing Kirsty O’Connell;