NSW’s transport minister booked a government car for a private trip with friends including colleague Rose Jackson.
NSW’s transport minister booked a government car for a private trip with friends including colleague Rose Jackson.
By Michael McGowan
February 2, 2025 — 9.15am
NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen ordered a taxpayer-funded ministerial driver to chauffeur her and friends on a 446-kilometre round-trip from Sydney to her holiday home on the Central Coast on the Australia Day long weekend.
The trip, which the minister has promised to pay back, admitting it did not pass the “pub test”, included a separate jaunt to the Hunter Valley for a “private event”.
Ministerial driver logs reported in The Sunday Telegraph and independently verified by the Herald show a driver was dispatched in a Kia Carnival van from Sydney at 8am on January 25 for an almost 14-hour, 446-kilometre journey.
The minister’s trip took place amid a long-running industrial dispute between the government and the state’s rail unions over a pay deal. The government has been in and out of court with the unions, while industrial action crippled the rail network in mid-January.
After going to Haylen’s holiday home in Caves Beach, the driver then took the transport minister, Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson and their party on a separate trip to the Hunter Valley, famous for its wineries, for what the Minister’s office described as a “private event”, the Herald understands.
While Jackson was on the trip, she was not involved in organising the ministerial driver.
The driver did not return to Sydney until 8.50pm.
Rules governing the use of ministerial cars allow their use for both public and private uses, and government sources were insisting on Sunday that no policies had been breached by the trip.
In a statement, Haylen conceded the driver should not have been used.
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“I attended a private event on January 25,” she wrote. “Cars and drivers may be used for official and private purposes as is stated within the official guidelines.
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“I recognise, however, that this does not pass the pub test, and as such I have made arrangements to repay the money to the Premier’s Department.”
The trip was slammed by Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, who attacked Haylen and Jackson for showing “utter contempt for the NSW taxpayer”. He called on both ministers to resign.
“Now that they’ve been caught, minister Haylen says she’ll pay it back – that’s not accountability, that’s an admission of guilt,” he said.
“And worse, they forced a government driver into a gruelling 13-hour shift.”
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Michael McGowan is a state political reporter for The Sydney Morning HeraldConnect via email.
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