Ms JODIE HARRISON(Charlestown):The Hunter region has been the engine room of the New South Wales economy. The Hunter region contributes over $55 billion annually to the gross regional product of the New South Wales economy, with coal exported through the Port of Newcastle contributing almost $24billion of this.

The Hunter region has the largest regional economy in Australia, ranking above the whole of Tasmania, ranking above the whole of the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. In fact, the Hunter region contributes more than one quarter of the total economic output of New South Wales each year.

However, in the Hunter region a slow-burning crisis is under way, a crisis that has been coming for many years, to which this Government must turn its attention because it owes the people of the Hunter.

The Hunter region is facing massive economic and structural change being driven by a rapidly decarbonising world, which will impact coalmining, power generation, industry, investment and jobs in the Hunter region, and people and businesses in my electorate of Charlestown.

The Hunter community is not the first to face structural change. The people of the Hunter are accustomed to disruption, as you know, Mr Temporary Speaker. The closure of BHP's Newcastle steelworks in 1999 is still held in the collective memory of my constituents in the broader Hunter community.

Many of those former steelworkers reskilled and retrained, often using TAFE to assist. However, many never worked again. The Hunter community faces a new challenge, bringing change and uncertainty as the world acts to do what it must do in order to reduce carbon pollution and as renewable energy sources provide cheaper sources of power.

Supporting the Hunter community when it comes to responding to this looming and major structural change is incumbent on the New South Wales Government. Generation after generation of Hunter families have worked in mining, power generation and related industries. The people of the Hunter have provided the labour on which this State has prospered.

The people of the Hunter, with unions and local environment groups and Labor Environment Action Network, have formed the Hunter Jobs Alliance. I congratulate the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the United Workers' Union, which is my union, the Australian Services Union, Community and Public Sector Union, National Tertiary Education Union, Teachers Federation, the Independent Education Union, the Nurses and Midwives' Association, Labor Environment Action Network, the Lock the Gate alliance, Hunter Community Environment Centre and the Nature Conservation Council for identifying the commonalities of purpose among their organisations and coming together to create the alliance.

The Hunter Jobs Alliance aims to create a future for the Hunter region with full employment, good jobs, a thriving and healthy living environment, with a stable climate and renewable prosperity.

The Electricity Infrastructure Investment Bill we dealt with last year was a step in the right direction. Thanks go to Minister Kean for working collaboratively on this and agreeing to Labor's amendments to include the Hunter region as a renewable energy zone. But this bill is not the end of the story: There is much more work to be done, much, much more the Government can do.

The Hunter Jobs Alliance calls for four things: firstly, the establishment of a local collaborative statutory body to support the community in adjusting to structural change; secondly, a public investment commitment, including the ongoing allocation of dividends from the NSWGenerations Fund; thirdly, the delivery and funding of a set of evidence-based actions to support workers and communities and attract job-creating investment into the region; and, fourthly, the development of a standard creating clear expectations of companies undertaking large-scale closure and retrenchments in the Hunter region.

While traditional mining and manufacturing jobs are declining in the region, jobs in what have been seen traditionally as caring roles - jobs in areas such as aged care, early childhood education, health and nursing - are on the rise.

There is an opportunity for the Government to play a role in recalibrating the way that those roles are recognised and remunerated, thus expanding the range of jobs that could be seen as attractive as our regional economy restructures. I acknowledge that may not occur immediately but it would certainly increase the pool of good jobs that are available to counter the decline in the Hunter's traditional industries.

A failure by the NewSouthWales Government to be proactive will be at the expense of not only the people of the Hunter but the New South Wales economy. The Government must not abandon those communities that have given so much. Instead it must work with them to find solutions to meet the inevitable challenges that lie ahead as not only the Hunter but the world responds to the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

I sincerely hope the Government works with the Hunter Jobs Alliance to deal with the transition as it occurs.

IMAGE: Courtesy ofNSW Parliamentary Library