Elias Visontay Transport and urban affairs reporter
‘Politics is tough’ the outgoing minister lamented in her resignation speech, as if the events that forced her to quit weren’t her own doing
After returning to power on a vision of credible, commonsense leadership, New South Wales’ Labor government had little option but to let transport minister Jo Haylen move on.
First it was revealed Haylen had summoned her private ministerial driver for a 446km, 13-hour round drive to chauffeur her and friends to a winery and back. Then, as more reports of her government-funded personal trips surfaced, what was first described as a lapse of judgment appeared to be an ingrained, careless attitude towards taxpayer money.
It was as if Labor had forgotten the lessons from the last time it was in office in NSW. Back then, scandals – ranging from large-scale corruption that ended up before the Icac to ministers allegedly misbehaving in public – sent it into the political wilderness for 12 years.
This time around, the task for Chris Minns’ new cohort of Labor ministers was clear: don’t do anything stupid.
But that message apparently drifted to the back of Haylen’s mind. Repeatedly.
The member for Summer Hill was at the centre of one of the Minns’ government’s first big scandals after taking office in 2023, when there was scrutiny over Haylen appointing Josh Murray – who had previously been a Labor staffer and donated money to the party – as transport department secretary. Haylen survived.
Then there were subsequent revelations that a former Labor campaign manager and candidate for the party who had been appointed to a non-political departmental liaison role engaged in political work while seconded to her office.
More recently, her reputation has been tarnished by a bitter, months-long standoff over a new rail worker pay deal that has seen Sydney’s train network held to ransom – and even threatened the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Initially, Haylen appeared to get away with the ministerial driver embarrassment. Prompted by a Daily Telegraph article over the weekend revealing she had called her driver from Sydney to come to her holiday house on the Australia Day long weekend for a trip to a winery, Haylen apologised and vowed to repay the cost of the journey.
Crucially, while it may not have passed the all important “pub test”, Haylen was not accused of breaching any regulations. After all, using a ministerial driver for private trips is permitted within the vague rules of the ministerial driver scheme.
On Monday, Minns called it a “massive error of judgment” and conceded it looked bad for the government, despite it being above board. He promised to tighten the rules to prevent similar trips and, after quizzing Haylen on the saga, dismissed calls from the opposition for her to resign.
At this point, Haylen could have come forward and told her boss about all the times she had used her driver for personal trips.
Instead, Haylen insisted she couldn’t recall any such instances.
It meant Minns was ill-prepared for an interview on 2GB Radio on Tuesday morning where he defended his decision not to sack his transport minister, only for host Ben Fordham to raise fresh revelations of Haylen’s excursions that the premier was seemingly unaware of.
“[But] if there’s other information and it comes to light and it’s presented to me … I have to take that into consideration, and it would weigh very heavily on me,” Minns said in the excruciating on-air moment when he realised he hadn’t been told the full story.
The wheels of politics moved swiftly from there on in. Later that morning, Haylen met Minns to inform him she was resigning.
“Politics is tough. Expectations are very high,” Haylen lamented on Tuesday afternoon in her resignation speech, as if the events that had forced her to quit weren’t her own doing.
Despite inheriting a jackpot of project ribbon-cuttings including the Sydney Metro city extension and the Parramatta Light Rail – projects largely undertaken by the previous Coalition government – Haylen’s repeated own goals meant Minns had little choice for her future.
While the second ministerial scalp of Minns’ government could lead to a slight reshuffling of portfolios, the instability is unlikely to hamper the government which has broadly been seen as providing a strong, decisive response to the wave of antisemitic attacks in Sydney.
If the driver ordeal has in fact ended – more stories of other politicians’ use of the scheme may well emerge – it will allow Minns to return to other more pressing issues, such as housing reform, mass resignation of mental health professionals and several new public sector pay deals.
Ultimately, Haylen’s prompt resignation shows that while she might not have learned the lessons of the past Labor government, Minns certainly has.
