Unforced errors like Haylen’s are signs of hubris. Voters will have taken note

One big question that should be worrying Premier Chris Minns is whether his trusted lieutenant Jo Haylen – a seasoned political operator – was simply a bad apple who allowed the trappings of public office to cloud her judgment. Or whether his team, not even two years into government after more than a decade in the political wilderness, is already becoming too accustomed to being in power.

Haylen, as Minns was at pains to point out after her resignation as transport minister, has paid a hefty financial, professional and personal price for her stunningly poor judgment when it came to perks. She has taken a big pay cut to sit on the backbench, her ministerial career is on ice for now, and she has had to admit that she caused the government damage by using a taxpayer-funded driver to take her friends to a boozy lunch that had no link to work.

Jo Haylen at the press conference where she resigned as transport minister. Credit: Nick Moir

She has also forced a cabinet reshuffle on Minns, a task no leader relishes. MPs who are promoted or retained on the frontbench are not grateful because they believe they were the most worthy of a position anyway. MPs who are not elevated or – worse – dumped, hold a grudge against the leader.

While Haylen was undoubtedly at fault in the fiasco – she booked the people mover and driver to pick up her and her husband from their Caves Beach holiday house – others who joined her should have also known better. Not least because one is a NSW minister, Rose Jackson, and the other is Melissa Donnelly, the head of a public sector union which represents Comcar drivers, the federal equivalent of NSW’s chauffeurs.

Speaking on Wednesday, Minns stressed it was not Haylen’s character that should be criticised. Rather, what rankled him was the “disrespect” shown to the driver, a public servant, who was forced to do a 446-kilometre round trip over 13 hours.

Jackson, another of Minns’ most trusted ministers, was too “excited” about her surprise birthday lunch, she said on Wednesday, to question Haylen about commissioning the trip in a government car.

Once it dawned on Jackson that Haylen’s driver had been summoned to ferry them around on a purely personal jaunt, she should have suggested the party chip in for an Uber home. No doubt she now wishes she did. It was clumsy, but Jackson did not need to lose her job over the lapse.

Haylen’s scalp, however, has given the lacklustre opposition a spring in its step. Undoing a first-term minority government may not be a wild pipedream after all. Opposition transport spokeswoman Natalie Ward desperately wanted Haylen’s head, although perhaps did not expect this to be the issue that would end her ministry.

A frustrated driver expressing his annoyance to colleagues at being expected to wait three hours on a long weekend, while Haylen and the rest of her party enjoyed a long lunch, made its way to the opposition, complete with a photo of driver logs.

The Liberals were initially nervous about leaking the driver logs, worried about stones and glass houses. Opposition Leader Mark Speakman even insisted on outing himself, admitting he’d sent his ministerial driver on “errands” such as collecting his dry cleaning rather than have him sit idle while on work time.

On 2GB Drive on Tuesday, host Clinton Maynard put this to former Liberal transport minister David Elliott: “So in your experience, you spent a lot of years as a minister, was it just too much of a grey area? And were there rorts even on your side?”

Elliott did not bat an eyelid: “Oh there was definitely rorts on my side, I can tell you that. But there were rorts right back to the Wran government, and people were taking the mickey.”

Elliott’s candid response indicates where the opposition is likely to take the issue. If it pushes hard, examples of the Coalition’s past indiscretions will also be aired. That would be far less damaging given it is no longer in government. Nonetheless, it will frame its thinking.

This does not mean the Minns Labor government can breathe a sigh of relief. Rather, every minister, and indeed Labor MP, should use Haylen’s fall as a stark reminder of what can happen when hubris sets in. Haylen did not technically break any rules, thanks to the broad scope of the guidelines around ministerial drivers, but her actions failed the proverbial pub test, a more powerful measure in the eyes of voters.

Minns has so far led the government with a steady hand. But this year is likely to be his most challenging, given the magnitude of issues facing NSW. Ministers are fallible, but unforced errors such as Haylen’s should serve as a big wake-up call for everyone in Minns’ cabinet. Being in government is a privilege, not a right.

Alexandra Smith is state political editor.

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