Former NSW investment commissioner and investment banker Mike Newman will contest the seat of Cessnock for One Nation and also lead the party in next year's state election.
During a visit to Singleton ahead of a party fundraiser at Toronto on Friday night, party president Pauline Hanson also announced Stuart Bonds would be the party's upper house candidate.
Mr Newman said he would be based in the region rather than committing to living in Cessnock if elected.
"Well, I'm in the region, and to be honest, I've been living in Japan for the last 25 years, so I'm not actually from Sydney. I've probably been living in Japan longer than Sydney," he said.
"I'm not working just for the seat of Cessnock; I'm working for the whole of NSW."
Mr Newman described the scheduled closure of Eraring coal-fired power station in 2029 as "economic suicide".
He said coal and nuclear should be part of the state's future energy mix, adding that he would be happy to host both a nuclear power plant and nuclear waste dump in the region.
"I've worked very closely with the entire nuclear supply chain. I know how well and effectively it is all managed," he said.
As part of its plans to scrap net zero, One Nation has also proposed building a new coal-fired power station in the Hunter. The Newcastle Herald understands the plant would be next to Bayswater Power Station at Muswellbrook.
Federal New England MP Barnaby Joyce added he wanted to see the state government's renewable energy zones "dead and buried in the swamps with the mammoths".
"We have communities divided because of transmission lines that have decimated the value of their place and desecrated the landscape," he said.
"We have people who cannot sell their place because they're surrounded by these swindle factories, these intermittent power precincts of photovoltaic black. I'm meeting them all the time."
The business-first agenda also includes the removal of payroll tax for businesses operating in the regions and halving the tax for those in metropolitan areas.
There would also be a freeze on the number of public servants and the introduction of private sector key performance indicators (KPIs) into the public service.
"The truth is, we are going to have a bureaucracy that is accountable, and we want to change the remuneration structures to private sector KPIs," Mr Newman said.
"If you say you're going to build 20,000 homes, if you don't build 20,000 homes, you don't get paid."
Among the other highlights from Friday's media conference was an exchange between Mr Newman and a Japanese journalist who asked a question in her native language.
Mr Newman began responding in Japanese before Senator Hanson interjected.
"Excuse me, I think everyone else might like to know," she said.
Mr Newman apologised before summarising the question.
"The question was basically that Japanese large businesses have lost a lot of confidence because of the lack of precitability, all right?" he said.
Despite Ms Hanson's calls for an Australian "monoculture", Mr Newman shut down suggestions One Nation had a culture of racism.
"My wife's Japanese, so if I thought for even a fleeting second that [One Nation] were racist ... all my business partners are Indians who are absolutely patriotic Aussies, I don't really see that," Mr Newman told News24 separately.
He also said NSW should look to the US as an example of how to foster a competitive economy.
"What we're trying to do is, like Florida and Texas, make NSW so competitive we have companies move here." Mr Newman told reporters.
Labor holds the seat of Cessnock with a 23 per cent margin.
One Nation is polling at 25 per cent in NSW, according to a Sydney Morning Herald Resolve poll in July, ahead of the Coalition on 23 per cent with Labor in front at 29 per cent.
NSW Premier Chris Minns conceded in July that Labor would have to "climb Everest" to stay in power due to the rising threat from One Nation.
The NSW Opposition has not clarified if it will enter into a preference deal with One Nation.
Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison criticised One Nation for having a poor record in the Hunter.
She called on Mr Newman to explain if he supported One Nation's position on whether trains should be built in the Hunter Region instead of overseas.
"They talk a big game about Australian jobs, but when we make the decision to bring those jobs home, their answer is to send the work overseas ... backing Australian workers means actually giving Australian workers the work, it can't just be a slogan," she said.
The Member for Cessnock, Clayton Barr, called Mr Newman an "outsider".
"When [people in the Hunter] come up against an outsider, we stand shoulder to shoulder, back to back, side by side, and we take on that fight," he said.
"We're in a situation now where a person is looking to come from the outside and potentially continue to live on the outside and seek to represent a community that he hasn't shed any blood for, hasn't stood on a local sporting canteen, hasn't coached a local team, hasn't worked, volunteered for a local community organisation... people will need to make a decision about all of that."
He also talked up Labor's commitment to local manufacturing.
"I find it just extraordinary that a candidate would be nominated anywhere in the Hunter, and one of the first things that they might say is: 'We want to send those manufacturing jobs back offshore'.
"We've seen that trick before. We've seen it from the Liberals and Nationals. This is just a cookie-cutter approach.
"For a new candidate to stand anywhere in the Hunter, and for that to be their first words, their first thought, is just outrageous.
"That is not the Labor way. That is not the Hunter way."
