By Chris Osborne

After a strong lobbying exercise, local Federal MP Jill Hall, organised for John Faulkner to come up to the Hunter, the week before he gave the Wran lecture.

The other local Federal and State MP’s up here – Grierson, Combet, Fitzgibbon, Barr and Hornery – all supported the event and all came except Combet who was in Canberra on the carbon price stuff.

It was held at the Charlestown Central Leagues Club and was attended by nearly 250 branch members from all over the Hunter region.

The address by John was followed by a question and answer session.  It was obvious that there was a lot of anger in the room. This 3 hour event was very successful and showed how much branch members in the Hunter Region are dismayed at where the party is going.