NSW Nationals leader jetted to the wineries. He took ministerial car too

NSW Nationals leader Dugald Saunders used a taxpayer-funded car to ferry him around during a weekend away in the Hunter Valley with his wife in which he visited wineries and received gifts of alcohol in the latest of a string of disclosures that has placed a spotlight on use of ministerial vehicles.

The Sydney Morning Herald revealed last month that Saunders, leader of the junior Coalition partner in NSW and agriculture minister in the former government, took a Rural Fire Service jet from Dubbo to Newcastle in August 2022 before a trip through the Hunter Valley wine region.

Dugald Saunders and Jo Haylen have both fallen foul of the rules around using public-funded transport.Credit: Fairfax Media

Saunders was the only passenger on the 34-minute taxpayer-funded flight, which he took after being offered the plane by RFS commissioner Rob Rogers, to attend the opening of a memorial garden for firefighters in his Dubbo electorate.

While Saunders said he did not hire a car for the trip to Newcastle, or use a ministerial driver, the Herald obtained driver logs through freedom of information laws which show he did take a taxpayer-funded car on the trip.

The Nationals leader says the trip was work related, saying he attended an “industry roundtable” and discussed issues such as grape fungus, workforce shortages in the Hunter Valley and the impact of floods on the region’s wine production.

The 932-kilometre, two-day trip also included a winery tour and tasting at De Iuliis winery in Pokolbin, as well as visits to Agnew Wines.

In a social media post during the trip De Iuliis thanked Saunders “and his lovely wife Karen” for their visit, which included “a winery tour and tasting of our wines”.

Saunders did not directly answer whether his wife, who accompanied him during his visit to the Hunter, had driven his ministerial car from Dubbo.

“As previously stated and as disclosed in the vehicle logbook, the trip in question was a business trip. Any assertions to the contrary are false,” a spokeswoman for the Nationals leader said.

“Mr Saunders drove the ministerial vehicle back to his electorate following various work meetings and round tables that he attended with an adviser.”

The driver logs obtained by the Herald also show Paul Toole, then the minister for regional roads and transport, took a 900-kilometre private trip to Port Macquarie in the lead-up to New Year’s Eve in 2019 during the summer bushfires.

The logs show Toole, the current opposition police spokesman, travelled from his electorate in Bathurst to Port Macquarie on December 27. The logs, which cut off on December 31, show Toole was in the coastal holiday spot for at least five days.

Toole, who listed the travel as being for a “private” purpose, clocked up 900 kilometres on the trip.

“This occurred almost six years ago but to the best of my recollection I ferried myself, and I was still working because there were fires occurring across the state,” he said.

Use of taxpayer-funded ministerial cars has become a lightning rod issue in Macquarie Street since the resignation of Jo Haylen as transport minister last month.

Haylen quit cabinet after revelations she used a ministerial driver for a Hunter Valley wine tour with her husband. She had previously sent a government driver on a 13-hour, 446-kilometre round-trip from Sydney to chauffeur her and a group of friends – including Housing Minister Rose Jackson – to a long lunch at a Hunter Valley winery on the Australia Day weekend.

The trips – as well as those taken by Saunders and Toole in the previous government – were within the rules for the use of ministerial drivers, but the controversy surrounding Haylen’s trips prompted NSW Premier Chris Minns to issue a ban on ministerial vehicles being used exclusively for private purposes.

The subsequent release of troves of logbooks via freedom of information laws shows the practice was commonplace. The logs have shown ministerial drivers have regularly been used to ferry NSW ministers to and from holidays including Thredbo and South West Rocks.

Logs released last week also showed Haylen used a taxpayer-funded chauffeur to take her to or from her Caves Beach holiday house on at least 14 separate occasions.

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