PHILLIP O'NEILL: Scott Morrison's manufactured appearance sells wrong idea of Newcastle

I watched Mr Morrison's address and press conference online. Surely he was having a lend? Yet no one has called him out, publicly at least.

There are three problems with Mr Morrison's performance.

The first is his representation of Newcastle. Here I am, said the Prime Minister, at "the biggest port on the eastern seaboard."

The backdrop would have been deliberately chosen by his minders. 'Optics', as they call them, are managed closely nowadays. Across the estuary you see the coal loaders and fertiliser plant on Kooragang Island. The carrier Empress Zonda then blocks the view as it rolls out on the tide hauling something in excess of 150,000 tonnes of coal to a power station in Japan.

"The Hunter keeps adapting, keeps evolving, keeps seeing the opportunities that are ahead," said Mr Morrison, "But also maintaining that rich legacy of its history, its industrial base."

Some Novocastrians like dirty, muscly talk, stirring images of back-in-the day. Mr Morrison knows how to excite them. Newcastle has always been "a place that builds things, a place that makes things," he smirked, with that expression when you're never sure whether the Prime Minister is searching his audience nervously for acceptance, or simply being dismissively arrogant.

Mr Morrison, someone should have asked, do you know Newcastle is no longer dominated by making material things? Manufacturing across the local government area, according to data provider Remplan, accounts for only 6 per cent of value generated annually in the urban economy, a distant 8th place behind real estate services, health care and social assistance, financial services, construction, professional services, education, and public administration.

The second problem concerns the substance of Mr Morrison's announcement. His message to the Hunter was that green hydrogen will be a big generator of jobs. A pamphlet, a road map, as every document needs nowadays to be called, released subsequently by the Committee for the Hunter, says a hydrogen plant based on a 100 megawatts (MW) electrolyser might be operational by 2035.

But there's no detail of actual jobs in the road map, so I searched around. A green hydrogen plant in the USA - it will be its largest - is planned for Alabama, in upstate New York. It will be a monster 450-MW facility, costing $400 million. The total number of workers needed to run it will be 68, only. A smaller 24-MW facility for Taranaki on New Zealand's north island, once operational, will need eight workers, only.

We don't look past the wrapping when we are being sold these jobs show bags, do we? Mr Morrison said his concern was the region's young people, "So they can stay here, they can have a career here, so they can raise their families in what is a beautiful part of our country." He was having a lend, wasn't he?

The third problem is what Mr Morrison didn't announce. A Prime Minister with a genuine understanding of Newcastle would have stood in the heart of the city and announced infrastructure for a professional services economy. He would have held up the City of Newcastle's new economic development strategy, a plan based on informed understanding of what makes a successful city. One essential ingredient is the advanced skills of its residents. The other is the city's liveability.

A helpful federal government would have announced generous funding of the city's art gallery, and a road map promising support for a suite of civic amenities. He would have announced funding for further expansion of the University of Newcastle's downtown campuses, and funding for extension of the light rail to the health precinct surrounding John Hunter Hospital and the university's Callaghan campus.

Newcastle's economic future is all around us, but is insufficiently noticed. Since 2001 the city has added over 15,000 workers who have degrees, and over 5000 workers with diplomas and advanced diplomas. The number of vocationally trained workers has plateaued, the number of unskilled has fallen dramatically. The new economy is here, in the city. But it needs investing in, championing, nurturing.