Revealed: The NSW ministers who used drivers for family holidays

Ministerial drivers have regularly been used to ferry NSW ministers to and from holidays including Thredbo and South West Rocks in revelations which have sparked feverish finger-pointing about the use of taxpayer-funded perks on both sides of the political aisle.

Dozens of drivers’ logs were released under freedom of information laws on Thursday after former transport minister Jo Haylen was forced to quit cabinet last month following revelations she used her driver to take her and Housing Minister Rose Jackson to a boozy lunch in the Hunter’s wineries.

Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig, Health Minister Ryan Park and Attorney-General Michael Daley.Credit: Herald archives

The logs also show Haylen used a taxpayer-funded chauffeur to take her to or from her Caves Beach holiday house on at least 14 separate occasions. The Summer Hill MP travelled to Caves Beach four times in the ministerial car across the second half of January, including the 446-kilometre round trip to the Brokenwood winery for Jackson’s 40th birthday.

The drivers’ logs also reveal that Health Minister Ryan Park took two trips to Thredbo, in November and December. On both occasions, his driver clocked an almost 1000-kilometre round trip ferrying him to the popular Snowy Mountains destination before driving back alone.

The release of the ministerial driver logs immediately sparked accusations about the use of the vehicles from across the political spectrum, but Park said the use of the vehicle allowed him to “reunite with family while undertaking work on a handful of other occasions”.

In both cases, Park was joining his family for a weekend away after they had left without him the day before. Before the November trip, he attended a cancer fundraiser on the Friday evening. In December, he had been attending the NSW Drug Summit before a national health ministers meeting on the day before the journey.

Jo Haylen announces her resignation from cabinet last month.Credit: Nick Moir

The logs also show that in late April last year, Attorney-General Michael Daley returned from a holiday with his family in South West Rocks after the Premier commissioned a review into the bail of Daniel Billings, who allegedly murdered Molly Ticehurst.

“The attorney-general was on a private trip with his family in South West Rocks in April 2024. He and his family travelled to SW Rocks in their family car,” a spokesman said.

“At short notice he needed to return to Sydney for meetings with the premier and other ministers. So that the rest of the Daley family were not left stranded in South West Rocks without the family car a ministerial driver went to South West Rocks to bring the attorney-general back to Sydney for the meetings.”

Park defended the use of the ministerial vehicles – which was within the rules at the time – saying his job was “24/7” and that using the car allowed him to “perform my duties while commuting, whether to review briefs of correspondence, or confer with my colleagues”.

“Since I was sworn in, I’ve received over 26,000 pieces of correspondence and over 3200 briefs about the most serious and significant issues facing our health system and the people who rely on it,” he said.

“Every moment I’ve had the privilege of being a minister, my focus has been on working for the people of NSW.”

Nonetheless, the release raises questions about the distinction between private and public uses for ministers who tend to work long and unpredictable hours. In one case, Jackson took a ministerial car from Palm Beach to the city and back on May 25.

That trip, her office said, had occurred after she was already away with family and had been called into work for a “last-minute” expenditure review committee meeting ahead of the 2024 budget.

Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig also used a ministerial driver to take him to Toowoon Bay on the Central Coast for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. A spokeswoman said Hoenig “returned to Sydney to attend the cricket as a guest of Venues NSW as well as dealing with matters as acting attorney-general”.

After the Haylen fiasco, Minns tightened the rules around ministerial drivers so that solely private use, such as winery tours, is no longer permissible, but there will be political point-scoring as Labor and the Coalition look to outdo each other over the issue.

Hundreds more driver logs will be released next week to parliament, which will include all ministers dating to March 2019, when Gladys Berejiklian was premier.

It has already emerged that the NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner approved a trip in a taxpayer-funded plane for Nationals leader Dugald Saunders to fly from his electorate in Dubbo to the Hunter Valley to visit a series of wineries.

Saunders, then agriculture minister in the former Coalition government, was the only passenger on the 34-minute flight from Dubbo to RAAF Base Williamtown near Newcastle in August 2022.

The now-NSW Nationals leader said the trip to the Hunter was work related and included meetings about grape fungus, workforce shortages and the impact of floods on the region’s wine production.

But the trip, which included a wine tour and gifts of alcohol, raised eyebrows within the government. Later, the then deputy premier Paul Toole issued a general warning about the appropriate use of RFS planes by all ministers. The warning didn’t make specific reference to Saunders.

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