Michael Daley to run for NSW Labor leadership

Vowing no ‘retribution’ if he wins, former NSW Labor leader wants the job again, setting up showdown with Chris Minns.

Michael Daley. Picture: Richard Dobson

Former NSW Labor leader Michael Daley says he wants the job again after the departure of Jodi McKay, setting up a protracted rank-and-file ballot against rival leadership aspirant Chris Minns.

Mr Daley, who was succeeded by Ms McKay after losing the 2019 state election, on Sunday put himself in the leadership contest and said he was the only choice available to “unite our party”.

“I was very sad to see Jodi resign on Friday, it should not have come to that,” Mr Daley said on Sunday. “I was very sad to hear her say that she thought the only way to unify our party was to sacrifice her own leadership and that she felt she had to do that because she was constantly battling a small group of people and that she’d had enough.”

Mr Minns, the party’s transport spokesman until he quit last week, is expected to announce his candidacy as early as Monday.

Mr Daley defeated Mr Minns for the Labor leadership in November 2018 — 33 votes to 12 — but lost the NSW election and did not contest the position again.

Ms McKay also defeated Mr Minns in June 2019, with the majority of the caucus vote and 63 per cent of the rank-and-file.

But Labor’s by-election defeat in Upper Hunter — the ultra-marginal electorate that delivered a rare swing toward an incumbent government — created instability for Ms McKay.

While defending her leadership, she said the result showed there were serious problems for Labor, which has been out of office in NSW since 2011.

Despite former Nationals MP Michael Johnsen resigning after it was alleged he assaulted a sex worker — a claim he strongly denies — and a number of other Coalition scandals, the government recorded a 3.3 per cent swing toward it at the May 22 poll.

Labor’s primary vote dropped 7.5 per cent, although the National Party’s first-preference count also fell by 2.8 per cent.

Both Mr Minns and Mr Daley were widely speculated to be interested in the leadership after that result, although the Maroubra MP quickly and publicly declared his support for Ms McKay.

Mr Minns and Labor Treasury spokesman Walt Secord both resigned from shadow cabinet last week, accusing the office of Ms McKay’s deputy, Yasmin Catley, of circulating a dirt sheet.

The campaign against Ms McKay has angered a number of Labor MPs, including the party’s emergency services spokeswoman, Trish Doyle. “Sadly, egos who’d rather trash good leadership than not be in power do not care what gets broken along the way,” she said on Friday in a pointed criticism of Mr Minns.

Addressing a rally on Sunday, Mr Daley said: “Some (party) members (had) been on to me saying that following what happened to Jodi they feel like ripping their membership tickets up. A membership ballot has never been more important … because healing has never been more important for us,” he said. “I had four months in the job and I want another opportunity to get it right.”

Labor secured a swing toward it in 2019 but did not win enough seats to take office. Mr Daley, however, had a difficult last week in the campaign and notably was unable to say, in a debate against Premier Gladys Berejiklian, what his TAFE plan would cost.

A 2018 video, which resurfaced during the campaign, appeared to show him suggesting Sydneysiders were leaving the city and being replaced by “people typically from Asia with PhDs”.