McKay’s leadership under threat as more MPs expected to quit frontbench

NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay is facing further attempts to destabilise her leadership after transport spokesman Chris Minns quit on Wednesday morning, furious over the release of an internal dirt file on him.

Mr Minns’ announcement follows the resignation of Treasury spokesman Walt Secord on Tuesday.

Walt Secord resigned from NSW Labor’s Jodi McKay’s frontbench. Credit: James Brickwood

However, several Labor MPs, who did not want to be named due to the divisions within the party, said Mr Minns was unlikely to be the last resignation. Several frontbenchers are angered by the release of a dossier circulated to the media by the office of Yasmin Catley, Labor’s deputy leader and a close ally of Ms McKay.

The leaking of the dossier on Mr Minns, which linked him to an ICAC donations inquiry and claimed he had only 14 of the 30 votes needed to force a leadership ballot, has deepened divisions within the party amid Labor’s poor showing in the Upper Hunter byelection.

Mr Minns said he was “very disappointed” by reports a dirt file on him was circulated within his party, since the byelection loss on Saturday.

“As a result my position in the shadow cabinet is untenable and I will resign effective immediately. I will continue to serve the Labor Party and my electorate of Kogarah from the back bench,” he said.

The byelection result, in which the party’s primary vote dropped to 20 per cent, has put renewed scrutiny on Ms McKay’s leadership. A defiant Ms McKay on Tuesday was adamant she would remain as leader and she was the only Labor MP with enough support for the position.

Chris Minns is considered the main leadership rival to Jodi McKay.Credit: Edwina Pickles

She said she had waited 48 hours after the disastrous result to gauge whether other MPs had the support to challenge her.

“No one in those 48 hours challenged me,” Ms McKay said. “No one asked me to stand aside. No one at all made any comment that would in any way be construed as them not having confidence in me.

“No one has the numbers within our caucus to mount a challenge against me.”

Ms McKay conceded it was difficult to make the party’s message heard during the pandemic.

“Have we struggle to get our messages out there? Yes,” Ms McKay said.

“Am I perhaps not as popular as Gladys Berejiklian? Yes. But for me, popularity is not what is important, it is actually about getting out of bed every day and making sure that I do the right thing.”

Ms Catley called for unity within the party, and said she was not aware of the dirt file on Mr Minns.

“Divided we will never win,” Ms Catley said. “We must be united. We need to get behind the leader and do the right thing by the Labor Party.”

Wyong MP David Harris said he backed Ms McKay as leader and had not been contacted by a single colleague “advocating a change in leadership”.

“Maybe the white-anting from a very small group demonstrates there’s no support for a serious challenge on the leadership, otherwise they could have acted,” Mr Harris said.

NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay and deputy leader Yasmin Catley insist they knew nothing about a dirt file on leadership rival Chris Minns.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Port Stephens MP Kate Washington, upper house leader Adam Searle, upper house whip Mark Buttigieg and Ms Catley are among those to publicly express their support for Ms McKay.

Mr Secord said he decided to resign from Ms McKay’s frontbench after seeing Ms McKay and Ms Catley deny knowledge of the document titled “Why Chris Minns and Jamie Clements Can Never Run The NSW Labor Party”. Mr Clements, who is a close ally of Mr Minns, was forced to resign as the NSW Labor general secretary after sexual harassment allegations were made against him. He denied the claims.

Mr Secord said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that the staff of the deputy leader would distribute a “dirt file” on a sitting shadow minister who had not formally declared a challenge for the leadership.

“They knew about it. Everyone knows that it was distributed by senior opposition staff ... I just think that’s absolutely unacceptable, and I want no part of that,” Mr Secord said.

Another senior Labor MP Penny Sharpe, who also resigned from the frontbench two weeks ago over an internal policy dispute, said she was severely disappointed in the release of the dossier, which she warned would prove damaging for her party.

“Juvenile, destructive antics have no place in a party seeking to govern our state,” Ms Sharpe said.

“People turning on each other and behaving in this way is not only disappointing, it completely undermines Labor supporters who work hard every day to try to improve the lives of people in NSW.”

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