Addressing climate change was front of mind for voters who cast an early ballot Tuesday at Newcastle's King Street pre-polling place, ahead of this weekend's state election.
While most accepted that the outcome of the poll locally was, in some respects, a foregone conclusion (Newcastle is currently held by Labor with a very safe margin just above 17 per cent and, with the exception of the Upper Hunter, none of the region's electorates are considered especially marginal) those who spoke with the Newcastle Herald identified preventing catastrophic climate change as a key priority for the new state government.
"Nothing else matters until we have a plan," Cooks Hill resident Greer Wilton said, after casting her vote.
The cost of living and renting in the city, social inequality and homelessness, the long-promised high speed rail connection to Sydney, expansion of public transport, and access to affordable education were among other issues for voters in the state's "overlooked" second city.
"Historically, Newcastle has always been overlooked," East End resident Coral Harris said, "Generally, it has not been a place that gets much from an election, and I think it is trodden on a bit as well."
Voters will ultimately decide Saturday whether Dominic Perrottet's Liberal-National coalition government, which has been in office for the past 12 years, will be returned for another four or whether Labor leader Chris Minns, who replaced former Newcastle MP Jodi McKay as the party's leader in 2021, will take the reins as the state's 47th Premier.
By all forecasts, though, that decision appears more likely to be made in the marginal seats of Sydney with Newcastle, Wallsend and Swansea safely held by Labor, Lake Macquarie safely independent, and only Port Stephens (Labor, 5.8 per cent) and Upper Hunter (Nationals, 0.5 per cent) considered marginal seats.
Nevertheless, voters locally remained undecided on which of the major parties was likely to form government come the weekend's result.
"It's an absolute 50-50," Cooks Hill voter Giles Boyd said, "From the state level it's difficult as to what you can do about climate change, but there are certain things like public transport, which a state government can actually do rather than the state blaming federal and the federal blaming the state for inaction."
More than 400,000 votes have already been cast across the state, the NSW Electoral Commission said Tuesday, with the numbers in line with a growing trend of voters turning out early in recent state and federal elections.
The state's electoral commissioner, John Schmidt, also noted more than 460,000 postal vote applications had been made since opening on January 16, with just shy of 9,500 already returned.
The urgency of the climate on voters' minds Tuesday coincided with a "final warning" from the United Nations' most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which warned Australia and other developed countries must reach net zero emissions a decade earlier than originally promised to avoid catastrophic and irreversible damage to the planet.
Such "warp speed" action would require the Hunter's fossil fuel intensive economy - which supports more than 15,500 mining jobs, according to regional economy database Remplan, representing the region's ninth largest employer - to transition to clean energy as soon as possible.
But, on King Street Tuesday, Sue Ferguson of Newcastle described some of her frustrations with government as paying only lip service to such key issues; "Newcastle proposes to be green," she said, "... but you'll be riding a bike along a bike path for 100 metres and then it stops. I think it would be great if we had more bike lanes and things like that.
"I think there is a lot that needs addressing in Newcastle, but in some ways that is more of a local council issue. But I think the environmental issue is bigger than anything."
"(Newcastle) has been a very safe seat since my parents were voting, and for as long as I've voted, and I feel that we're overlooked for that reason," Carol Michilis, who lives on The Hill, said, "We're very safe, so they feel they don't have to worry too much.
"We're one of the main country centres from Sydney. We're not unimportant anymore."
