Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s front line features an army of cadets

Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s Cabinet has five ministers aged 36 or under but will youth prove to be a benefit or could it cause a future disaster asks Andrew Clennell.

Gladys Berejiklian and her cabinet young guns Stuart Ayres, 36, Dominic Perrottet, 34, Sarah Mitchell, 34, Adam Marshall, 32, and Matt Kean, 35.

ONE of the little-known features of the Gladys Berejiklian Cabinet is the youth of some of its ministers.

There are five ministers in the 23-strong Cabinet who are 36 or younger — up from two in the last Baird Cabinet.

The most prominent of these is the 34-year-old Treasurer and deputy Liberal leader, Dominic Perrottet, arguably the state’s youngest-ever treasurer.

Deputy Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party Dominic Perrottet, 34. Picture: Dylan Robinson

The age of the ministry became an issue last week when 32-year-old Nationals minister Adam Marshall managed to miss a flight to Darwin for the Tourism Ministers’ conference — a gaffe immortalised by this paper’s “Where the bloody hell were you” headline. This is one of the few important gigs Marshall gets to go to and he blew it because he could not even manage to have his staff book a flight properly.

Then there is Stuart Ayres, 36, the minister for hard hats who has appeared recently promoting the WestConnex and NorthConnex projects, giving an update on another tunnel or two in his new role as Minister for Sport and Minister for WestConnex.

State Liberal MP and minister for hard hats Stuart Ayres, 36.

Ayres has been in Cabinet three years and has made some rookie errors in his time, such as promising the SCG Trust he had their new stadium up on Centennial Park land without asking the former premier. He also tripped over in a Daily Telegraph interview when he became minister for WestConnex, being unable to name when the stages finish for the motorway.

The other young recruit to Cabinet is Matt Kean, aged 35. Together with Trent Zimmerman, he has recently been elected leader of the moderates faction.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Hornsby MP Matt Kean, 35.

Kean takes on Better Regulation but is already earmarked for big things by many Liberals, even if his life experience appears to extend thus far to being a factional player who entered politics in his 20s. The Nationals also have a second in the category of under-35s — Sarah Mitchell, 34, Minister for Early Childhood Education.

As many readers pointed out to me forcefully when I noted Barry O’Farrell’s first Cabinet had a series of ministers aged over 65, age should not matter. But this time, it is not so much a Dad’s Army as an army of cadets. And that’s the problem with this Cabinet — very little time in opposition.

Adam Marshall famously missed his flight to Darwin for the Tourism Ministers’ conference. Picture: Barnsley Tim

Former Liberal premier Nick Greiner was 36 when he became Opposition Leader and 41 when he became Premier.

Yesterday I rang him on the topic and he said, regardless of age, there were far too many political apparatchiks in the state and federal parliaments.

“My point is age is age but if you’re 45 and you have spent 20 years in and around State Parliament as a political staffer …” Greiner said, adding, “You might be better off being 35 if you’d spent time out in the real world doing something. It’s obvious there needs to be a mix of both age and experience and generally you want a mix of political apparatchiks and real-world experience.”

Sarah Mitchell, 34, is the Minister for Early Childhood Education.

Perrottet has previously been a lawyer and an MP for five years. Kean has been a staffer and worked at PwC. Marshall has been in Parliament since age 28.

Already they are talking about Kean and Perrottet as future leaders of the Liberal Party.

With Berejiklian already having such novices plus Ray Williams and Tanya Davies at the bottom of the Cabinet list, you can see that the tail is pretty long. Considering Berejiklian has changed so many ministers’ portfolios, this points to a situation where the NSW public service very much takes hold.

And we could end up with a bunch of Yes Ministers and/or ministerial gaffes. That’s the danger for Berejiklian in the two years ahead.