NSW Labor’s biggest Achilles heel? Hubris

When NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey heard that his third budget was widely being described as boring, it would have been a relief. Mookhey is known for his colourful frames, eclectic music taste and a penchant for the quirky, but he would take “boring” over most other descriptors that could be thrown at his budget.

NSW Treasurer Mookhey has forecast a slim surplus in coming years. Credit: Sam Mooy

No big cash splashes, no reckless spending. Indeed, Mookhey even forecast a slim surplus (yes, just $1 billion) in coming years – a lofty promise that may well not materialise. It’s contained in the budget papers, nonetheless.

But also in those budget papers is a clear signal that NSW Labor’s pious stance in opposition is starting to take a different turn since it found itself in power. Hubris has started to seep into NSW Labor as it settles into government.

Here’s a good example. In opposition, Labor boasted it would stop a treasurer from spending on a whim. The Coalition government had seen pork-barrelling, in the words of former premier Gladys Berejiklian, as “not illegal”. It pork-barrelled to curry favour with voters. Labor vowed to do things differently, as a matter of principle.

A Labor government would abolish a little-known but long-existing “Advance to the Treasurer”, which allowed for a pot of money to be set aside for whoever held that office to deal with unforseen expenses. “The Labor Party will promote stronger budgeting and clean up imprudent ad hoc spending,” the ALP boasted in its election costing request to the Parliamentary Budget Office, “by eliminating the Advance to the Treasurer.”

Scrapping that advance, according to the budget office, would save $50 million, although it warned that it would “reduce the government’s capacity to undertake unexpected discretionary expenditures”. Axe it and the government would need to find savings elsewhere in the budget.

In the Coalition’s final budget, delivered by then-treasurer Matt Kean, $120 million was set aside in the treasurer’s advance for state contingencies, although it was not all spent before they were turfed from power. Labor stuck to its word, and there was no advance in its first budget. By its second budget, however, an eerily similar fund emerged in its appropriation bill.

Called a “special appropriation for the treasurer”, $322 million was set aside in last year’s budget for state contingencies, essential services and “expenditure related to the government’s election commitments”. No specifics but a big pot of money. In this budget, that has ballooned to $868 million, again to be used on such things as election commitments.

The Minns government is naive if it thought a massive $868 million rainy-day fund for the treasurer would go unnoticed. Epping MP Monica Tudehope, one of the new young Liberals elected to parliament in last year’s wave of byelections, knows budget papers better than anyone.

Tudehope was the deputy chief of staff to Dominic Perrottet when he was treasurer. She was, Liberal insiders joke, the brains of the operation. So it is not surprising that she was perplexed to discover that the fund the ALP wanted to abolish was seemingly rebadged, bigger and better.

Newly elected Epping MP Monica Tudehope formerly worked in Dominic Perrottet’s office when he was treasurer.Credit: Louie Douvis

The treasurer’s office insists the fund is necessary because Mookhey will almost certainly be hit with unforseen expenses, and it is deliberately vague to give him scope to pay for anything from wage rises for public servants to buying back Northern Beaches Hospital. Put simply, it gives Mookhey the power for ad hoc spending.

While in opposition, NSW Labor also successfully used the powers of the upper house to its advantage. With the support of the crossbench, Labor MPs were able to demand hugely useful documents which exposed a range of problems that went on to plague the Coalition and no doubt contributed to its election loss. The appointment of former deputy premier John Barilaro to a plum gig as a trade commissioner in New York was one, as were details revealing entrenched strife within the public insurer, iCare.

However, Labor is less welcoming of the power of the upper house while in government. The Dural caravan inquiry is a good case in point. NSW Labor staffers would have been arrested later this week had they not finally agreed to appear before the inquiry into who knew what and when in relation to the discovery of an explosive-laden caravan. Premier Chris Minns and Police Minister Yasmin Catley refused to appear (as is their right as lower house members), so the committee called their staff.

The political staffers refused to turn up. The premier, by the way, didn’t want them to. They then defied a summons. But finally, late on Tuesday night, they agreed to provide evidence once it became clear that arrest warrants would be issued for their detention.

You can argue all you like about whether staffers should be dragged into such inquiries, but Labor’s fondness for the upper house has waned since coming to government.

Mookhey’s budget may have been craftily boring, but it doesn’t all stand up to close inspection. A government like this one – with a minority in both houses – should remember its promise to govern nobly and transparently.

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