Opposition targets timing of minister’s meeting with ‘Labor mate’

Transport Minister Jo Haylen met with a former Labor staffer who she later hired as the state’s top transport official just days after the ALP won the election, raising questions about the hiring process for the job.

Ministerial diary disclosures reveal Haylen met with Josh Murray, a former Laing O’Rourke executive and chief of staff to Labor premier Morris Iemma, eight days after she was sworn in as minister in March.

A meeting between NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen and her new top bureaucrat has raised questions about his hiring.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

The April 4 meeting – described as a “transport portfolio discussion” in the disclosures – took place a week before the previous transport secretary Rob Sharp was sacked as part of a dramatic shake-up of the public service.

Murray was appointed as transport secretary in June after what the government said was a “market testing and recruitment process” led by the acting secretary of the Premier’s Department, Peter Duncan, “in consultation” with Haylen.

The government had hired executive headhunting firm NGS Global to find a new secretary, and Murray was given the job despite a number of senior transport officials within the department applying. Internally, acting secretary Howard Collins had been seen as the frontrunner.

Sacked secretary of Transport for NSW Rob Sharp.Credit: James Brickwood

But the April meeting has led to renewed questions about the process behind his appointment. The state’s opposition has been critical of Murray’s hiring because of his links to Labor, and because he had formerly worked in corporate communications at Laing O’Rourke, along with other roles.

Haylen defended his appointment in an interview with radio station 2GB in July, saying he was qualified for the position, while also conceding Murray had “absolutely” been a member of the party.

“I know Josh Murray. I know him because he has been involved as a former staff member in a former NSW government [and] because he’s been involved in transport over the last number of years in our city, our state, and I know he is exceptionally qualified,” she said following his appointment.

“He is a serious, intelligent thinking person. He is a leader of people.”

On Tuesday, opposition transport spokeswoman Natalie Ward gave notice that they will try and force the government to hand over all documents relating to Murray’s hiring, accusing the government of a lack of transparency behind the process because of the earlier meeting with the minister.

“The transport minister likes to sing his praises, but the facts are that he is a mate of the minister, an ex-Labor staffer and was, or is currently, a member of the Labor Party and without any discernible transport experience,” she said.

Asked about the process behind Murray’s appointment, a spokesman for Haylen said that the meeting with Murray in April was “not an interview”.

“It was a meeting with someone with years of government and industry experience in the transport portfolio,” the spokesman said.

“Josh Murray had run a transport minister’s office and has spent 15 years working with industry stakeholders. After the election, the minister was seeking views inside and outside the department on priorities. This was a publicly disclosed meeting taking place in the middle of Parliament House.”

The diaries – the first to be released under the Minns government – shed light on the initial priorities of Labor in its return to power after 12 years in opposition.

An analysis by the Herald reveals the new government held more than 130 meetings with union leaders in the three months after the election as it grapples with a series of tense public sector wage negotiations and plans for an industrial relations overhaul.

Premier Chris Minns met with Unions NSW five days after the election, and four more times before the end of June, as well as with the Health Services Union. He also met with miner Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance, gaming lobbyist ClubsNSW, property developer Walker Corporation and Eraring’s proposed buyer Brookfield.

Also on the meeting list was his predecessor as NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay and former premiers Bob Carr and Nick Greiner. Minns met former Labor prime minister Paul Keating only two months after his scathing National Press Club address in which he attacked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong over the AUKUS deal.

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