“My mistakes are now causing my government damage,” acknowledged now former NSW minister for transport Jo Haylen in her resignation speech.
As stories unspooled detailing Haylen’s misuse of taxpayer-funded transport, her position in cabinet – one she has held since 2023 – became untenable. “I have made mistakes – people aren’t perfect,” she admitted.
And while she didn’t break any rules, Haylen employing a ministerial driver to ferry her to private events – including a 13-hour 446-kilometre ride to lunch at a Hunter Valley winery during Australia Day long weekend – drew negative optics and the increasing media attention became a distraction Premier Chris Minns could no longer ignore.
“I’ve let the public down and I’m very sorry for that,” Haylen said. “We were elected to be a better government than the last government,” she added. Describing government as “a collective effort”, Haylen said the Minns administration’s agenda was “more important than one individual”.
“I can’t defend the indefensible.”
In response to Haylen’s resignation, Minns said: “I can’t defend the indefensible – particularly for the Australia Day event. You have got to treat taxpayer money as if it’s your own.”
Haylen said she had always prided herself on “treating people with respect and acting with integrity”. She added: “It kills me right now that people might think otherwise.”
Of her time overseeing the state’s public transport system, the member for the inner-west Sydney seat of Summer Hill said: “I’m incredibly proud that we’ve made public transport exciting again. People are voting with their feet. Patronage is up.”
Indeed, figures from Transport NSW show public transport use across the state nearly returned to pre-Covid levels with more than 629 million ticketed trips across the network in the last financial year – an almost 20% increase compared to 2022/23.
The growth in public transport use in part reflects the success of the Sydney Metro which commenced in August last year. Around 215,000 people travel on the Metro line daily. More than 12 million trips were taken during the service’s first ten weeks alone. “Great global cities of the world have great public transport systems,” said Haylen, “and Sydney is well on its way.”
Expressing disappointment that she didn’t get to finish the job, Haylen thanked her transport team. “They are a committed workforce doing an essential job each and every day for all of us.”
Haylen finished her resignation speech by thanking her family. “They’re going to see lots more of me now,” she said.
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