State owned energy corporation yet to be established as Minns marks 100 days as premier

Chris Minns insists his government has not broken any election promises – despite gutting popular cost of living measures, shelving plans for “secret rent bidding” and failing to set up a cashless poker machine trial on time.

Premier Chris Minns is yet to set up a billion-dollar state owned energy company despite nominating “energy security” as his number one priority for his first 100 days in office.

Marking the milestone on Monday, Mr Minns insists his government has not broken any election promises – despite gutting popular cost of living measures, shelving plans for “secret rent bidding,” sending a contract for new ferries to Tasmania, and failing to set up a cashless poker machine trial on time.

The day after the election, Mr Minns told The Daily Telegraph that his first 100 days in office would be focused on “energy security”.

“In addition to ensuring that we begin the process of setting up the energy security co-operation, we’ll get those (energy) rebates out the doors, particularly for small business,” he said in March.

Energy bill rebates of $650 for small businesses and $500 for people on income support payments kicked in from last Saturday under a joint federal and state government initiative.

NSW Premier Chris Minns talks to the Daily Telegraph about his first 100 days in the job. Picture: Richard Dobson

But, 100 days since the election, the $1 billion state-owned energy security corporation is still just an idea.

“I think reasonable people would say that’s understandable,” Mr Minns told the Telegraph in an interview to mark his first 100 days.

“The immediate priority should be to get energy bill relief and keep the lights on,” he said.

Mr Minns said the energy security corporation involved “complex” work.

“(The) energy security co-operation was always going to be about long term energy security for the state because it’s about storage and dispatchable power once you’ve got the renewable energy zones up and running,” he said.

A spokeswoman said the government had taken significant moves to safeguard energy supply including by more than doubling a tender for firming infrastructure to support around 930 megawatts of batteries and storage capacity to be in place from 2025.

Chris Minns has been running the state for 100 days. Picture: Richard Dobson

Mr Minns’ first broken election promise was when he slashed the Active Kids and Creative Kids vouchers, which before the election he had pledged to “roll over”.

Labor will also retire the First Lap voucher for swimming lessons, and is set to scrap travel cards for regional apprentices after the Telegraph revealed the money could be spent on everything from doughnuts to cigarettes.

Mr Minns was also forced to scrap plans to ban “secret rent bidding” because the policy would never have made it through parliament.

But Mr Minns denied breaking any election pledges.

“I don’t believe we have,” he said.

Mr Minns said Labor has been forced to work with a “hung parliament,” which means the government does not have “carte blanche to push through its legislative agenda”.

“I’d much rather have 75% of our agenda passed than 100% of nothing,” he said.

“We’re not going to be stubborn or pig-headed about it.”

When the Coalition came to government in 2011, Premier Barry O’Farrell passed 27 Acts into law in its first 100 days. Under Mr Minns, Labor has passed 13 in the same time frame.

Labor has also made radical moves to shift planning controls for major developments out of the hands of councils in a bid to get more houses built, to ease supply constraints on the market.

The government views this as one of the changes that will have the most impact on NSW in coming years.