Ms. Lawler said the most urgent issue facing the people of the Hunter is the next major eruption in the global financial crisis.

“The CEC, in association with the American physical economist Lyndon LaRouche, has for two decades repeatedly forecast the danger of derivatives speculation and put forward solutions to shock-proof Australia,” she said.

“Unfortunately, until now the banks have been king but it’s time to dethrone them or they will go down and we will all go down with them.”

The CEC is calling for a separation of commercial banking from investment banking; a government bank to direct public credit to revive our productive economy, and major infrastructure projects to reindustrialise the economy.