New England New State Movement

In broad terms, it covers the humid coastal strip including the Hunter Region[citation needed] to the Queensland border, the New England Tablelands and the immediately adjoining Western Slopes and Plains.

In economic and geographic terms, New England forms a natural unit that has survived to the present day.

This created a problem because an urban/industrial centre like Newcastle and the Hunter were seen as an essential part of New England, or any new state, in economic and geographic terms.

The boundaries recommended by the 1935 report of the Nicholas Royal Commission into areas of NSW suitable for self-government included Newcastle and the Hunter.

The Country Party's influence at federal level would also tend to increase, by the creation of new senators representing the new state.

Agitation began again at Grafton towards the end of the First World War led by Earle Page, a local doctor and later a prominent politician, rising to caretaker Prime Minister of Australia.

This was picked up a little later by Victor Thompson, editor of the Tamworth Northern Daily Leader who launched a sustained newspaper campaign that involved papers as far south as Cessnock in the lower Hunter.

In 1922 a formal request to the Commonwealth was made by the lower house to establish a new state in northern New South Wales.

This acceptance of boundaries determined by the Nicholas Commission proved to be the movement's critical strategic error.

Yet, the evidence from similar federations like Canada and the USA revealed numerous successful "farm states", like Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas, with comparatively small capital city populations tied to a single, essentially rural community of interest.

A new state proposal based in most part on boundaries formed by those Local Councils with majorities that actually wanted the change would have acquired a critical momentum.

Premier Robert Askin and the Cabinet believed in 1966 that a secession referendum would win, so they had the upper Hunter Region and Newcastle included within the boundaries of the proposed new state before putting it to a vote.

The threat of restricted access to the highly regulated Sydney milk and dairy products market also boosted the 'no' vote in rural areas.

[23] When a new power station opened at Armidale in 1922, it was under the Scottish royal banner, later, in modified form, the symbol of the New State Movement.

Although the Electricity Commission of New South Wales (ECNSW) was established in 1950, initially the grid in the New England region remained separate.

The Annual General Meetings of NSW Farmers passed resolutions to investigate the feasibility of a non-metropolitan state in both 2004 and 2005.