The Prime Minister will visit Newcastle today, and will invoke the spirit of the legendary 1997 Knights premiership team for inspiration as the region grapples with a community-defining energy transition.
In his second appearance in the region in as many months, Anthony Albanese will be the keynote speaker tonight at the Hunter Business Nexus event at City Hall, highlighting the region as a "hub of new skills, new technologies, new energy and new ideas".
In his speech, seen by the Newcastle Herald, Mr Albanese will applaud the historic resilience the city had shown to turbulent changes within its local economy.
"In 1997, BHP announced it would be closing the steelworks, and back then there were plenty of people ready to write Newcastle off," Mr Albanese said.
"Yet anyone who witnessed what the Knights produced that September, saw a sign of things to come.
"Proof that you should never write off Novocastrians.
"Because even when the furnaces at the steelworks went cold, the spark of creativity and innovation in Newcastle and the Hunter was still there, firing this community's reinvention and renewal."
It's understood the PM will also visit an urgent care clinic (UCC) on the Central Coast. The Lake Haven UCC was opened in December and is one of 14 across the state, including the one in Cessnock, which aim to pressure off local hospitals.
The latest in a series of visits to the region by the Prime Minister. In January, Mr Albanese inspected the progress of the $2.1-billion M1 Pacific Motorway extension to Raymond Terrace, and talked up the importance of the controversial Hunter offshore wind farm.
In September, Mr Albanese appeared at a Carrington workshop to promote Australia's manufacturing industry, and in July he turned the first sod for the $55-million Newcastle Airport upgrade.
