NSW’s Gen Next leaders will be doing it their way

The young triumvirate that now rules NSW dispensed with the usual chauffeur-driven cars to ­arrive for their swearing-in at Government House.

Stuart Ayres and Dominic Perrottet arrive at Government House in Sydney on Tuesday to be sworn in. Picture: David Swift

The young triumvirate that now rules NSW dispensed with the usual chauffeur-driven cars to ­arrive for their swearing-in at Government House.

The new Premier, Dominic Perrottet, 39, arrived on foot with his new deputy, Stuart Ayres, 40.

The new Treasurer, Matt Kean, 40, rocked up in his white Tesla.

This is the next generation of political leaders, ready to do things differently.

Kean and Ayres have become the most significant members of the government, each bringing with them a crucial constituency.

Kean represents left-leaning Liberals worried by what looks like a government swinging to the right.

Ayres brings with him Sydney’s hard-hit west and southwest, where many traditional Liberal supporters are still seething over lockdown restrictions harsher than those applied in the city’s east and north.

Brad Hazzard remains as Health Minister and an influential member of cabinet but he has already made it clear this is his last term in parliament; he is staying on only to see the Covid crisis through.

At Tuesday’s post-vote press conference, Perrottet was already using the Kean factor to bolster the new government’s credentials as moderate and environment-friendly.

Questioned on climate change, he said he was proud to have worked with Kean on “our world-leading energy policies, our renewable energy zones and our electric vehicle reforms”.

“We’ve got, I think, the most active and passionate Environment Minister in the country, if not the world,” he declared.

It was Kean who convinced the NSW Nationals to back climate change targets to cut the state’s emissions in half by 2030.

Kean and Perrottet were both elected to the NSW parliament in the 2011 election, both among the state’s youngest members, with Kean older by a year.

The cricket-loving Kean came to national prominence with his elevation to the environment portfolio in 2019, where his enthusiasm for green initiatives put him at odds with the conservative wing of the party.

Kean stumbled earlier this year when, to the surprise of many, he appointed former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to the state’s net-zero emissions board.

It didn’t go down well with his cabinet colleagues, angry at Turnbull’s increasingly frequent attacks on the Morrison gov­ernment.

Kean dumped Turnbull, ­admitted the mistake and toughed it out.

As his former boss John Brogden observed: “He’d sacked a good friend and still turned up and sat in front of a camera and did an interview.”

Kean got into politics early but as with all good coming-of-age stories, there are a couple of versions. In one, he was a 19-year-old uni student who spoke out against the construction of an apartment block on the Wahroonga street where his parents still live and met former Liberal Party leader Brogden, then in the planning portfolio.

In another telling, he met his then girlfriend, Wendy Quinn, around the same time and was considering joining the Labor Party. Quinn told him she’d never speak to him again if he did. He ended up joining the Liberals but breaking up with Quinn.

Kean and Quinn got back together a couple of years ago and are reportedly engaged.

Ayres is the other key player in the freshly minted government.

Perrottet made it clear on Tuesday that he intends western Sydney to be “the engine room” of the state’s economic recovery.

Ayres, the Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney, is an integral part of that equation. For the rest of the country, he may be better known – if at all – as the husband of federal Foreign Minister Marise Payne, but in western Sydney he’s a household name and a highly recognisable face.

“My passion for this community knows no bounds,” he declared on Tuesday after being elected unopposed as deputy leader of the Liberal Party.

It’s been a good week for Ayres, still celebrating the victory of his beloved Penrith Panthers in the NRL grand final.

The football-mad Ayres grew up in Penrith, playing for the local rugby team, the Rams, and starting his career as a development officer for the AFL.

He has had several stints as sports minister and has pushed hard for years for a new, or revamped, stadium for Penrith.

That may be a little closer now.