The reason was that 20,000 voters wrote the number '1' alongside "Bonds, Stuart. Pauline Hanson's One Nation".

If Mr Bonds had secured another 2000 votes and passed the tally of the National Party candidate, then Mr Bonds would probably have defeated Mr Fitzgibbon on preferences. It was that close.

Mr Bonds secured 21.8 per cent of the first preferences of Hunter electors. His One Nation vote was highest up the valley - in and around Mr Bonds' home turf - especially in Muswellbrook, Singleton and in the small upper Hunter towns.

Across this belt, the One Nation tally often exceeded one in four voters. Similar concentrations of One Nation support occurred in parts of the Coalfields and in the towns near underground mines in Lake Macquarie. That said, Mr Bonds attracted strong voter support across this vast electorate. And where the One Nation vote rose, Labor's vote fell.

The question, then, is why did a candidate from a mean-spirited, racist party like One Nation attract so much support?

Given the vote for One Nation candidates Australia-wide was only 3.0 per cent something extra was going on in Hunter. Certainly, Mr Bonds attracted a lot of media attention, with the metropolitan press, especially, parading him and his spouse as a country freak show. But being quirky can be a plus in modern politics, and Mr Bonds was more marketable than the boofheads One Nation has presented to the Hunter electorate in the past.

But colourful packaging doesn't explain sufficiently why one in five voters supported Mr Bonds.

Mr Bonds spread his message via Facebook and YouTube. He erased his social media history early on, so we know little about the extent to which Mr Bonds' views match the bigotry typical of One Nation candidates.

What Mr Bonds concentrated on in his campaign was the condition of life and the economy in the Hunter. His cheap, amateurish video postings are convoluted, packed with misrepresentation. Yet they speak to a known truth: the social and economic fabric of the Hunter is being torn apart.

Mr Bonds' solution is more coal mining, and new coal burning power stations. Sadly, Mr Bonds fails to see that coal has become the problem. Coal delivers a double whammy in our valley. Burnt as thermal energy, coal accelerates climate change; and hostile weather conditions in our valley - drought, heat, wicked westerlies - are more common as a consequence.

In parallel, coal mining has turned vast sections of our valley into wasteland, and still its march up the valley continues. But the rollout is in new hands. The Hunter's great historical miner, Rio Tinto, has washed its hands of the stuff.

Last week, the other old miner, BHP, declared that the decarbonisation of the energy sector will see thermal coal ''phased out, potentially sooner than expected".Our new King of Coal is Glencore, a global corporation with a poor reputation for looking after its host communities. The Chinese and Koreans are securing strategic positions. Exploitative labour practices are on the rise. Contracting and drive-in, drive-out workers have become the norm.

The result, as Mr Bonds acknowledges, is that the upper Hunter's rural communities are losing people. School enrolments are falling, air pollution readings are above WHO limits, towns are failing.

Families are leaving for good reason. Meanwhile, the state government shows no signs of sharing the $1 billion gravy it gets from Hunter coal royalties.

This isn't what a successful regional economy looks like. Mr Bonds is right to ask the people of the Hunter to react. But he is wrong in arguing that more coal is the solution.

Labor's Mr Fitzgibbon has been returned as the local member. He has an important job to do. He has to resist the easy option of telling Hunter communities that all is fine, that coal is here to stay.

Finding a pathway out of coal that regenerates these communities and their surrounding landscapes, and provides good local jobs, is a tough task. But it is surely the only honest option for Labor at this time of human history.