Chris Minns’ first 100 days in office haven’t delivered what he promised

If Chris Minns is going to be upfront with voters, he needs to acknowledge when he cannot deliver what he said he would. Voters know a broken promise when they see one, writes James O’Doherty.

Since winning the election a little over 100 days ago, Chris Minns has taken every available opportunity to manage expectations when it comes to government spending.

He has identified projects which were left unfunded, highlighted infrastructure blowouts and pointed to ballooning debt left over from the last administration to warn of tough decisions ahead.

“The circumstances around debt in particular are so extreme that we have to moderate it,” he told me last week for an interview to mark 100 days in office.

But with some of his attempts to moderate spending, Minns risks missing the forest for the trees.

The Minns government has slashed popular cost of living relief measures, for example, while continuing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring consultants to upskill transport bureaucrats.

Chris Minns is under the microscope after 100 days. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Hiring contractors to teach transport bureaucrats to write, as I revealed this week, is exactly the kind of waste that the government’s “Comprehensive Expenditure Review” should have cut.

While the $227,000 spent on the contract is a drop in the ocean when it comes to the state government’s budget, every bit counts when it comes to saving taxpayers’ cash.

Minns knows this, as one of his first moves in office demonstrates.

I can reveal that shortly after winning the election, Minns moved to save cash by cutting ministers’ staffing budgets. While this sounds like a smart money-saving move on paper, it has actually risks doing the state more harm than good.

The mountain of difference between being in Opposition and being in Government is so steep that it would make even the most seasoned rider on Tour de France wince. And members of Minns’ cabinet have had to climb it on training wheels.

As previously noted in this column, Attorney-General Michael Daley is the only member of the frontbench to have served in the Ministry before.

Cutting the amount of money Ministers have to hire good staff is a short-sighted decision which will only haunt the government down the track. Despite being elected in March, ministers with important portfolios are still yet to fill key roles.

Minns moved to save cash by cutting ministers’ staffing budgets. Picture: Richard Dobson

Police Minister Yasmin Catley, for example, doesn’t have a permanent chief of staff. The person running Catley’s office is on loan from Transport Minister Jo Haylen.

Multiple government sources say that their “embarrassing” staffing budgets have made it “impossible” to attract people for the gruelling job of political staffing — principally because they cannot offer anywhere near market rate.

Why would anyone earning good money in the private sector agree to come and work crazy hours for less money, and minimal job security?

There might not be much sympathy for government ministers not having enough taxpayer money on staff but it actually does matter.

Invariably, it’s the staff that do all the work: and the newbie ministers need all the help they can get.

The practice of cutting staffing budgets dates back to Barry O’Farrell in 2011. One former Coalition staffer described it to me this week as his “worst ever decision.”

“Governments need people with proper brains,” the source said.

If you can’t afford good people, you are left with “the dregs of the private system and poorly service the state” they said.

With Minns marking his first 100 days in office this week it’s worth comparing the new achievements of the new Labor government with what O’Farrell did in the same timeframe 12 years ago.

In its first 100 days, O’Farrell’s government passed 27 Acts of parliament. In the same time, Minns passed just 13. That hardly suggests a full legislative agenda.

Barry O' Farrell achieved more in his first 100 days.

O’Farrell also used his first 100 days to introduce the public sector wages cap.

If Minns was serious in delivering on what was his core election pledge, he could have used his first 100 days to abolish the cap via legislation.

Despite promising to “scrap” the wages cap, Minns will instead wait until the rules imposing it conveniently expire in September.

The cap will still be gone but it doesn’t quite send the same message.

The wages cap is just one example of Minns being forced to play the hands he has been dealt.

The crossbench has already forced the government to shelve a promise to ban “secret rent bidding,” and a promise to build new ferries in NSW was sunk when no local manufacturers bid for the contract.

But the decision that will have the most impact on families is Minns’ decision to gut popular cost of living vouchers, despite promising to “roll them over” before the election.

The Active Kids vouchers will continue but they will be halved — and only go to people on income support. That means 750,000 kids will miss out compared to the previous policy.

Minns’ argument — that funding for the program ran out at the end of the last financial year — does not mean much for people who voted for Labor thinking that it would continue the program, as it promised to do.

When I asked the Premier if he was frustrated that he has not been able to meet his commitments, Minns maintained that he hasn’t broken any promises.

That was despite insisting that he is confronting the state’s budget challenges “in an honest way with the public”.

If Minns is going to be upfront with voters, he needs to acknowledge when he cannot deliver what he said he would.

Voters know a broken promise when they see one.