National candidate for Hunter Michael Johnsen gave the commitment during a morning tea on Saturday morning which also welcomed Senator Barnaby Joyce to Singleton.

“The Hunter Expressway will create potential problems in Singleton, you don’t need to be Einstein to work that out and what we need to do is get a by-pass for Singleton in the planning process,” Mr Johnsen said.

“This planning should be parallel with the construction of the Hunter Expressway.

“When the Hunter Expressway is complete we have got to have the project identified so we can get the funding to back it as soon as possible,” Mr Johnsen said.

Around 30 people attended the morning tea to hear from Senator Joyce who gave his support to Mr Johnsen describing him as a worthy candidate to represent the region in Canberra.

Senator Joyce acknowledged the Hunter was a difficult seat to win, given Labor had held the seat for the past 100 years.

He is part of the Channel 9 commentary team for the upcoming election and said the Hunter was a seat he would be closely watching.

“I would go so far as to say if Michael wins this seat, the Coalition has won the election, that’s how important it is to us,” Senator Joyce said.

Residents took the opportunity to raise personal issues with both men, mostly surrounding the rights of property owners over coal mining.

Senator Joyce said the National Party believed mining could take place without sacrificing Australia’s ability to feed itself.

Mr Johnsen told the group that Australia needed to have a plan in place to provide more than enough farming land and the opportunity to mine coal.

Mr Johnsen said a strategic plan across all three levels of government, federal, state and local was needed and that they had to make sure industry was with them in the decision making process.