Jo Haylen won’t be sacked over ‘massive error of judgment’, Minns says

February 3, 2025 journo

Two ministers who dispatched a taxpayer-funded driver on a 13 hour, 446-kilometre round trip to ferry a group of friends for a long lunch on the Australia Day long weekend suffered a “massive error of judgement” but won’t be sacked over the incident.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen sent for her personal ministerial driver to collect Housing Minister Rose Jackson, herself and a group of friends from her Caves Beach holiday house on January 25 to take them to the Brokenwood winery for a three-hour lunch.

The driver’s 13-hour trip from Sydney was technically within the rules, but Haylen admitted the decision was a “mistake” and “doesn’t meet the pub test”, and committed to personally paying back the cost of the transportation, determined by the Premier’s Department to be $750.

NSW Premier Chris Minns says two ministers who used a taxpayer-funded driver to ferry herself and friends to lunch over the Australia Day long weekend won’t be sacked. Credit: Rhett Wyman

Minns said he had made clear to both ministers he “personally regarded” it as a “massive error of judgement”, saying the incident gave the government a poor reputation, with many members of the community rightly unhappy with the behaviour.

“Having spoken to her [Haylen] over the last couple of days, she fully acknowledges this was a shocker, a major mistake, and I believe that when she says she’s not going to do it again, I genuinely do,” he said.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen’s holiday house in Caves Beach.

“I think that there’s been a singular, a massive, but singular lapse here, and I think it was probably absent-minded of her, not malicious.”

Haylen was embroiled in a scandal over the appointment of a political ally into a taxpayer-funded, apolitical role towards the end of 2023. The minister denied wrongdoing, but her then chief of staff left his role during the scandal.

In NSW, government ministers and the opposition leader are granted the use of a ministerial vehicle and driver.

Despite his displeasure, and his belief the driver had been “treated with disrespect”, neither Haylen nor Jackson would face repercussions over the incident, Minns said, and there would be no change to their use of taxpayer-funded ministerial vehicles.

“I appreciate that this is a major error, big lapse of judgment, and I’m confident, and I’m hopeful, and I’ve told them both that I expect that they’ll learn from this mistake and that they won’t repeat it,” he said.

“The truth of the matter is that both of them are in big portfolios, and that I believe we need continuity in those jobs. We still have to run these big agencies with complicated problems associated with them, and I need ministers who [have] got experience under their belt and focused on the job at hand.”

Minns said he believed Haylen’s improper use of the driver was isolated, but he would be quizzing his minister for more information in the coming days.

Because of the vague guidelines surrounding ministerial drivers, the premier indicated on Sunday he would look to amend the ministerial code to explicitly bar such incidents from happening again.

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