A wild year in NSW politics: Minns under pressure, Berejiklian challenges ICAC, Latham gets booted

It’s been a big year in NSW politics — from the scandal-plagued final months of a 12-year Coalition government to the rocky start of a new Labor reign. In between Labor’s “jobs for the boys” accusations and a ministerial sacking, there was also the release of the corruption watchdog’s report into former premier Gladys Berejiklian — and the breakdown of the NSW branch of One Nation.

Here’s a recap of the past 12 months.

January 

The NSW political year began with the Coalition in power and a major scandal for the premier. On January 12 Dominic Perrottet, who had been in the top job since 2021, was forced to admit he had worn a Nazi costume to his 21st birthday party. Senior Liberal sources told Crikey at the time Perrottet decided to speak about the incident after a ministerial colleague on the party’s right flank brought it up with him. There were rumours of a photo of the incident, but so far it hasn’t surfaced. Perrottet said he was deeply sorry for the “terrible mistake”. 

February 

February brought more trouble to the Coalition. First, an Auditor-General report found an intervention by ex-Nationals leader John Barilaro had prevented bushfire recovery funding from reaching Labor electorates. A few weeks later, on February 17, Finance Minister Damien Tudehope announced his resignation from cabinet. Here’s how the lead in The Sydney Morning Herald read that day: “The NSW government is in disarray just five weeks from the state election as one of Premier Dominic Perrottet’s most senior ministers and closest confidants was forced to quit cabinet after it emerged he owned shares in the tolling company that controls most of Sydney’s motorways.”

On the same day, upper house MP Peter Poulos resigned as parliamentary secretary over the sharing of explicit images of a female Liberal colleague in the lead-up to a preselection battle years prior. 

March 

A quarter of the way into the new year, Labor leader Chris Minns managed to do what so many of his predecessors had failed to do: he took his party to victory in the March 25 election, ending 12 years of Coalition rule in NSW. 

Veteran NSW Parliament expert and Sydney University honorary associate David Clune reflected on the campaign in a recent essay in The Australian Journal of Politics and History. “The Labor campaign was unexciting and lacklustre. There was much policy convergence between government and opposition, both attempting to outbid each other with a mundane series of pledges of more funds for areas of traditional concern such as health, education, energy, and housing affordability,” he wrote. “By the usual laws of politics, Labor should have been set for a landslide victory against a 12-year-old government that gave every indication of having been in office for too long, yet, surprisingly, it achieved a less than decisive victory.”

Labor won 45 seats, the Coalition 36, the Greens three, and independents nine. 

Also in March, Mark Latham fired off a graphic and homophobic tweet about independent MP Alex Greenwich, prompting the latter to sue for defamation. (In November, News Corp reported the parties had failed to resolve the matter outside of court and that it’s likely to go to a five-day trial sometime next year.) 

April

Minns, known as a cautious politician in opposition, proved the election win hadn’t changed him as he set about establishing his new government. An attempt to “freelance” on drug policy by one of his newly-minted ministers (Rose Jackson told a press conference the state should get on board with pill testing) was quickly quashed by Minns. Rather than get on board with pill testing, which was a recommendation of a major inquiry the previous government undertook, Minns vowed to hold a drug summit (slated to happen sometime in 2024). 

As the SMH reported, Minns announced numerous other reviews as well, into road and rail projects, cashless gaming, hospital staffing ratios, education policies, industrial relations, and workplace health and safety.

May 

On May 17, 95-year-old Cooma great-grandmother Clare Nowland was tasered in her aged care home and later died from her injuries. When NSW Police first notified reporters about the incident, officers removed a reference to the tasering from the official press release, and a subsequent freedom of information request by the opposition was returned with several pages blacked out. Police Minister Yasmin Catley came under harsh scrutiny over the affair and was last month criticised by the Information and Privacy Commissioner for the secrecy.

Senior NSW Police constable Kristian White has been charged with manslaughter over Nowland’s death and was this week told by Cooma Local Court to surrender his passport as part of his bail conditions, according to the ABC. The court case is ongoing. 

June 

In June, arguably the biggest political story in NSW in recent years came to a conclusion: the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) delivered its report into former premier Gladys Berejiklian and her secret ex-boyfriend, ex-Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire. It found both engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” when they carried on an undisclosed relationship while in office. The ICAC also found Berejiklian breached the public’s trust when she awarded funding to a shooting organisation in Wagga without disclosing the relationship, and that she “partially exercised her official functions … influenced by the existence of her close personal relationship with Mr Maguire”.

It did not recommend charges against Berejiklian.

Did we say conclusion? Berejiklian launched a legal challenge against ICAC in September, seeking a judicial review, Guardian Australia reported. Maguire is also facing court over conduct related to his time in office that was uncovered at ICAC hearings. 

July 

By July, Labor had been in office for 100 days. Minns bragged in a press release that he’d already managed to “smash the wages cap and deliver the biggest pay raise to public sector workers in NSW in over a decade”. 

“The NSW government has also enshrined the protection of publicly-owned assets including Sydney Water and Hunter Water in the constitution and taken significant steps to reduce the impact of energy price increases,” Minns said in the statement. 

With 13 bills passed through Parliament and housing reform underway, the biggest challenge facing the government would be the budget, Minns said. Having been handed “the largest debt in our state’s history” and $7 billion in unfunded programs, Minns predicted the treasury’s outlook would be grim. 

August 

NSW politicians are known as a messy bunch, and if the new Labor government had initially enjoyed a honeymoon period, by August it was over. On August 2, Minns declared his minister for the Hunter area had been sacked for allegedly failing to declare “substantial private family holdings” in a breach of the ministerial code. If the ex-minister, Tim Crakanthorp, should become the subject of an ICAC investigation he would be barred from the party room, Minns vowed. It was a surprisingly tough stance from a leader who just weeks earlier had refused to criticise Berejiklian for the ICAC’s findings or even agree she had acted corruptly. But when the corruption watchdog revealed in September it had begun a preliminary investigation into Crakanthorp, Minns was back to his usual relaxed self, explaining Crakanthorp wouldn’t be forced to the crossbench just yet. “It’s important to note that ICAC has launched a preliminary investigation and they haven’t moved to the next stage which is a formalised stage of public inquiry,” he told The Daily Telegraph at the time. “I think it is reasonable in the circumstances to wait for that to happen, if that were to happen.”

The same month, Transport Minister Jo Haylen came under fire for hiring a former chief of staff to ex-Labor premier Morris Iemma as Transport secretary, an appointment the opposition decried as “jobs for the boys”. A parliamentary inquiry heard an external recruiter had decided the secretary, Josh Murray, should not even have progressed to an interview and that his appointment would present a “significant risk”. Haylen defended her actions and refused to front the inquiry, which she called a “Liberal party stunt”. 

Across the political divide, One Nation’s NSW grouping fell apart spectacularly by the middle of August, when national leader Pauline Hanson sacked Mark Latham as state parliamentary head. The party’s three-person team splintered over the move, with one of Latham’s colleagues siding with him, while his other colleague sided with Hanson. 

September 

When it came time to hand down his first budget, NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey claimed a “new age” had begun where public investment would “benefit the many, bringing an end to the era of privatisation that handed profits to the few”. The black budget hole Mookhey had spent months foreshadowing was there for all to see: a $7.8 billion deficit was forecast for the current financial year, and the budget contained cuts and savings worth $13 billion. Nevertheless, Mookhey’s bureaucrats had predicted an $800 million surplus in 2024-25, followed by a $1.5 billion surplus by 2026-27. Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said the surplus forecast was a “mirage”. “This is a budget built on quicksand,” he claimed. 

October 

The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing assault on Gaza by Israeli forces had consequences that reverberated across the world, including inside the halls of Macquarie Street. 

At budget estimates later that month, MPs learned an internal police memo had warned the decision by the Minns government to light up the sails of the Opera House in the colours of the Israeli flag could inflame tensions in Sydney. 

Police scrambled to produce a “threat assessment” after learning last-minute of the plan, and a senior officer wrote to colleagues the top brass were “equally concerned” about the “impact this might have on our streets”. 

The author of the memo said they were also concerned about “potential further escalation of current tensions in the Jewish/Israeli communities”, the SMH reported.

Minns defended the decision to light up the Opera House sails but apologised to Sydney’s Jewish community after they were told to stay away from the CBD for their own safety. At a rally held at the Opera House following October 7, some protesters were heard chanting anti-Semitic slogans. 

By the end of the month, a quarter of NSW Labor MPs had declared their support for Palestine, breaking ranks with Minns, the SMH reported. Minns has since rebuked an MP who made a speech critical of Israel’s actions in the war and been praised by ex-Liberal prime minister John Howard for his criticism of a pro-Palestinian protest at Port Botany.

November

In November, it was time for another controversy involving Haylen. This time the Transport minister was criticised after it emerged a public servant seconded to her office had done political work linked to the Labor party when the role was meant to be nonpartisan. Haylen’s chief of staff quit on the day Parliament received documents that showed the bureaucrat had produced opposition research on Coalition MPs and helped organise a barbecue to celebrate 100 days of the Minns government, the SMH reported. 

December 

As the Labor government’s first calendar year in office comes to an end, one analyst says Minns has got to step it up if wants to be more than a one-term premier. 

“At the end of 2023, the performance of the Minns government is best described as mediocre,” Clune, the Sydney University honorary associate, told Crikey. “The premier has shown little vision, drive or inspirational leadership. He is more concerned about not rocking the boat than embarking on an adventurous voyage. Although it is relatively early days, there is no sign of the ‘fresh start’ Minns promised in the March election, with worsening problems in key areas such as health, education and transport.”

Clune said Minns had shown a “relentless focus” on providing more housing, which would endear Labor to younger voters but risk alienating others. 

“The government’s focus on development in inner urban areas rather than western Sydney, where its political strength is, will raise questions about divisive politics. The government also runs a risk in being seen to be in a too-cosy relationship with the development industry, a sector that has been notorious for corruption and shoddy construction.”

Clune, who for many years was the NSW Parliament’s historian and manager of its parliamentary research service, said Minns’ first year in office reminded him of 1990s Labor premier Bob Carr. 

“Carr led Labor to a one-seat victory in 1995. He had an abysmal first year in office and looked like being a one-term premier,” Clune said. “By listening, learning and changing his approach, Carr turned the political situation around to the extent that he was re-elected in a landslide in 1999. This precedent would be NSW Labor’s light on the hill at present.”