Up to a thousand people gathered at the official launch of a new force in Hunter Valley politics on Wednesday night.
After four years of planning, the Hunter Community Alliance held its founding assembly at the University of Newcastle great hall.
The new body brings together dozens of organisations from a broad cross section of the community, including faith groups, unions, charities, community, Indigenous, disability and environment organisations.
Federal and state ministers and local councillors listened to story after story of homelessness, growing up in unsafe housing, and the extremely challenging task of buying or even renting a home.
NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson and Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen both spoke at the assembly, and were asked to public commitments to action on stage.
Commitments requested included calling for the NSW Government to recommit to 30 per cent affordable and social housing at Hunter Park; the tenant-led redevelopment of the Hamilton South social housing estate and an expansion of access to affordable renewable energy and household energy efficency programs.
While not all commitments called for were agreed to, both Ms Jackson and Mr Bowen told the hopeful crowd they would not make commitments they did not know they could keep.
The HCA heard from a host of its members, calling for action on housing and homelessness, the energy transition and climate change.
Personal stories, such as experiencing homelessness, growing up in unsafe housing, and story after story of difficulty attaining housing were shared.
Ms Jackson, who visited social housing at Hamilton South earlier in the day, told the crowd housing was the NSW Government's number one priority.
Mr Bowen said regions like the Hunter were at "the centre" of government thoughts as it works to cut emissions and transition to renewable energy. He said plans for a solar panel production facility at Liddell would create more jobs than the power station ever did.
He also said he was passionate about seeing offshore wind develop off the Hunter coast, and the "real" benefits that would have in the community.
He said he would work with the City of Newcastle, Port Stephens Council and his state counterparts to develop offshore wind.
And he announced a $3 million commitment to the University of Newcastle to help develop an innovative process to make low carbon iron from Australian ores using hydrogen and electric smelting furnaces.
The alliance has already begun making waves in the local political landscape, penning a joint letter to the Hunter's eight Labor MPs and calling on them to "provide greater support" for the region in the June state budget.
HCA co-chair Teresa Brierley said the alliance brought together everyone for the common good.
"We don't work on things that divide us," she said.
"We started by listening to people and their families. The issues that emerged were housing, homelessness and concerns about the transition of our region.
"We aren't naive, we know this has to be a permanent alliance that takes persistent, consistent action. We are a non-partisan, independent, alliance which takes no government money and has raised enough annual funding for an ongoing organiser."
Fellow co-chair Emeka Ordu the organisation encouraged active citizenship.
"This is about a fair go for the Hunter that is too often overlooked. We are organising the people's power to back it up," he said.
The HCA is lobbying for $10 million a year in government funding to establish a regional energy transition authority and $41 million to refurbish part of Tighes Hill TAFE campus as a "new industries" training centre with operational funding of $5 million a year.
HCA also calls on the government to deliver the stalled Royalties for Rejuvenation Fund and expand it significantly from $25 million a year to the greater of $150 million or 5 per cent of the government's mining royalties income, estimated at $4 billion in 2022-23.
