Sustainable Australia Party fields return candidate

THE Upper Hunter by-election will see the Sustainable Australia Party return to contest the seat on May 22 and reinstate Calum Blair as their candidate.

Mr Blair had stood for the Upper Hunter seat in the 2019 state election and has taken on the candidacy to protect the environment and stop overdevelopment and corruption.

True to the party’s campaign aims, they want to see a moratorium on all new coal mines and are opposed to the large-scale expansion of existing coal mines.

To this end, the party sees a need for stronger environmental regulations to address accountability issues for major polluters. Mr Blair, 31, a  civil engineer and former Army Reservist, says it’s important for the Upper Hunter to develop its innovation.

“It’s almost like this area is saying, ‘we don’t need any more innovation’. This economy is so dependent on this one industry of coal mining. We need to look at new opportunities and technologies like 3D or 4D printing,” Mr Blair said.

He also stressed the importance of job creation through manufacturing and took particular slight at NSW Premier Glady’s Berejiklian’s lack of confidence in local manufacturing. The Premier had recently claimed, “Australia and New South Wales are not good at building trains, that’s why we have to purchase them.”

“Let’s stop sending our manufacturing jobs overseas. We can be making things right here whether it’s trains or buses. It’s an opportunity we’re giving away,” Mr Blair said.

He also said to help meet a skills shortage as the region transitions to new renewable energy industries, education centres like TAFE should be built in the Upper Hunter.

 “Growing up on Lake St Clair, the local water supply for Singleton, I spent a lot of my childhood on the lake and surrounding foreshores as well as the neighbouring Mt Royal National Park. I have a passion for our natural environment and want to see that protected from overdevelopment,” he said.

Mr Blair says living in such a beautiful environment gave him a passion for the environment and the desire to protect it.

“We need to keep polluters accountable. These mines that perpetrate air and noise pollution pay their fines and just get away with it. We need to increase the fine penalties to these mining companies to not make it so easy for them to break the rules,” Mr Blair said.

Sustainable Australia Party president William Bourke said, “We are pleased to again endorse Calum Blair for the Upper Hunter electorate. Calum was born and bred in Singleton and knows the importance of balancing environmental and job issues. The 2021 Upper Hunter by-election will offer a real opportunity for local communities to have their say on planning and environmental issues that affect their quality of life.”

“If you don’t address the number of people consuming our finite resources, then you undermine the action we need to take to lower our per capita consumption,” Mr Bourke said.

A central tenet of their party’s worldview is the establishment of a state and federally funded environmental job guarantee introduced for all workers transitioning out of the coal industry.

“Projects would include rehabilitation of abandoned mines, humane reduction and eradication programs for high-risk feral species and conservation land management projects to help relevant farmers and rural landowners manage biodiversity values on their properties,” Mr Blair said.

“Ultimately, the projects would be determined through the input of local communities and be run by local councils. This would be underpinned by developing employment and training in conservation and land management, particularly through local TAFE in the Hunter Valley,” he said.

On the sale of Scone TAFE to Racing NSW, Mr Blair said the government had effectively privatised it to the horse racing industry.

“Importantly, creating sustainable environmental and manufacturing jobs in the Hunter Valley means investing in TAFE, not closing it down or privatising it.” Mr Blair added.

“We support better public funding of TAFE and lower fees for students to help them acquire the skills needed for our future in the Upper Hunter.”

Mr Bourke added there needed to be an overhaul of the immigration system with a reduced intake of immigrants.

“John Howard tripled our annual permanent immigration program to benefit big business so we would simply undo the changes that John Howard and subsequent governments have made. We would take it back to a sustainable level of around 70,000 per year as it was prior to John Howard’s changes,” Mr Bourke said.