Premier Chris Minns admits his government needs to do more to win a second term

He’s popular, but has Chris Minns done enough in his first two years as premier to claim success? James O’Doherty issues the Labor leader a half-term report card.

In his own words, Premier Chris Minns’ government is heading into the second half of its term with “black eyes and bloodied noses”.

Tuesday marks two years since Minns took Labor to power from opposition, but there will be no popping of champagne corks.

It will be “back to the grindstone … I’m not one to do laps of honour,” he said in an exclusive interview to mark the second anniversary of his election win.

Minns is facing an increasingly urgent problem: he’s made frustratingly little progress on some of the things he vowed to fix.

Ministers, Labor MPs, unionists and Labor officials reflecting on the government’s progress concede that Minns really needs to start delivering on his core promises. “We need to start showing progress on the things that matter,” one minister says.

Premier Chris Minns says after two years in office, he’s far from declaring ‘mission accomplished’. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The Premier himself is personally popular, and has shown deft ability to handle a crisis, including the Bondi Junction stabbings, Wakeley riots, and natural disasters.

He has moved quickly to tackle issues like law and order, and shown strong leadership to stamp out the spate of anti-Semitic attacks that swept Sydney in recent months.

 

“Chris has risen to the position and shown he can do the job,” one senior Labor source said.

“He has taken appropriate action by managing things quickly.”

In the popularity stakes, Minns is miles ahead of the beleaguered Coalition under Mark Speakman, but there is a growing sense that personal popularity may not be enough to secure a second term if it cannot point to concrete achievements.

“People like that he’s competent, but that could unravel really quickly,” one Labor official warns. If you ask people to identify what this government is doing and what this government’s agenda is, they can’t attach much to him.”

Housing

One unmistakeable plank of the government’s agenda is increasing density in parts of Sydney that have been dropping the ball on delivering housing.

It was a pledge Minns made even before winning the election, at The Daily Telegraph’s Bradfield Oration in 2022.

 

He has moved to overhaul a turgid planning system strangled by red tape and installed a powerful three-person body to bypass recalcitrant councils in approving major developments.

However, these reforms have hardly been reaping results.

There are green shoots – housing approval numbers jumped markedly in January – but they are still far below housing targets.

Minns is still refusing to admit he will have failed if NSW falls short of building 75,000 homes in a year – the target he agreed to in national cabinet.

“I think voters will say progress has been made,” he says.

Victory, he says, would be delivering “significantly more” homes than are being currently built, while cementing a faster planning process to give developers certainty.

“If you get that confidence in the housing system where a builder and developer can say, ‘I know how long it will take to get a DA approved’ … (they will invest more in NSW)”.

Economy

Minns also went to the election promising to bring the budget back under control by paying down the state’s debt.

At best, that is a work in progress.

Gross debt is forecast to be $179.5bn in June next year, $8.7bn less than forecast before the election.

 

However, the latest budget update projects a $5 billion deficit this financial year, with the budget improving to be $1.3b in the red in 2027-28.

To save cash, Minns has skimped on major infrastructure projects, including by scrapping grand plans announced by the Coalition.

He has recommitted to a new Metro line for Sydney’s west, but pushed out the delivery date to 2032.

Other Metro lines to the Western Sydney Airport have been pushed out to after 2040, if they happen at all, and grand infrastructure plans promised under the Coalition (like a super deck connecting the two sides of Central with new parks, and business space) have been scrapped.

Despite axing “nice to have” projects in favour of the “must-haves”, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s latest budget update showed the books sliding further into the red, with increasing compensation payments partly to blame.

Minns this week moved to curb those compo payouts in a bold plan to make it harder for workers to claim for injuries like bullying, stress, and burnout.

Union fights

An overhaul to the workers compensation scheme for psychological injury is just the latest front in the Premier’s battle with the union movement.

Former transport minister Jo Haylen quit after revelations about her use of ministerial drivers. Picture: Gaye Gerard

After abolishing the wages cap, Minns has been in constant conflict with unions all lining up for their slice of the pie.

In the worst outbreak of industrial violence, strikes from rail unions wreaked havoc on the train network leaving millions of people stranded.

This is the kind of thing that can destroy a government; lofty promises of generational reform mean little if it cannot get the basics right.

Minns made the right call in standing up to the combined rail unions, but he cannot escape blame for the chaos that was metered out along the way.

Learning curve

Tuesday also marks 30 years since the last time Labor won office from Opposition, when Bob Carr defeated Premier John Fahey.

Long-time Labor strategist Bruce Hawker sees similarities between the Minns administration and the Carr government.

“I think if you look back to the first 12 months of the Carr government, there were some very bumpy parts for us,” says Hawker, who served as Carr’s chief of staff.

Minns has had a bumpy ride, too.

After spending 12 years in opposition, there was always going to be a steep learning curve for a Labor government.

Minns has been no stranger to scandal; he has lost two ministers – Tim Crakanthorp was sacked in 2023 over undisclosed property interests and, last month, Jo Haylen quit over her use of ministerial drivers.

Despite his first-term stumbles, Carr cleaned up in his second election, increasing his majority.

Is Minns hoping to follow in those footsteps?

“Obviously you want to win elections, but I can genuinely tell you, we are so far from going to the public and declaring ‘mission accomplished’,” he says.