Particularly when you consider the fact John Brown grew up in Cessnock as the son and grandson of the town’s longest serving and most prominent mayors (John Snr. and Bob Brown). 

Even his family thought ballot boxes and development applications were written in the young John’s stars.

“But I was a bit rebellious,” he said.

With a love of the written word and the desire to “do his bit”, he became a journalist for the Maitland Mercury. In 1972 he married his wife, Sue, and a year later they had a daughter, Callie. In 1988 he got a job at the Newcastle Herald. But it was hard to escape the fact that the Brown family tree is firmly rooted in the Hunter’s politics – and grows defiantly to the left.

In the 1990s John was living in Bolwarra and unhappy with the way Maitland Council was handling local issues. Determined to make a difference, and feeling disenfranchised after his first and only Labor Party meeting, he put his hand up as an independent at the local government elections.

“Shock horror – I was elected,” he said.

He held his post for six years. In the early 2000s, increasingly concerned by issues including climate change, over-development of farmland, environmental issues and social justice, he joined the Greens.

While he’s the first Greens member in his family, he traces his politics back almost a century. It was 1929 and Jackson Brown, the mayor’s brother and John’s great-uncle, joined the Hunter’s miners to march on the Rothbury Colliery demanding better safeguards. The police fired into the crowd. His uncle caught a bullet in the spine and was paralysed for life.

“I go back a long way in those years, those stories,” Mr Brown said. 

“My grandfather was fighting the horrific conditions of miners... I’m fighting for their future, trying to make sure there’s something for them after [the mining downturn].”

Mr Brown said he inherited his distaste for political bureaucracy from his father, a staunch Labor supporter. Bob Brown, frustrated by towing the party line, wrote out his resignation and posted it to the party headquarters.

“They sent it back to him and a note that said ‘you’re expelled’,” John said.

“I guess I come from a line of political rebels.”

Going into this election Mr Brown said his priorities are youth unemployment, the mining downturn, social issues including mental health and the environment. 

“My father said representing your local community is the greatest honour,” he said.