Taking pleasure trips on public purse goes to political judgment

The decision by the NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen to bill taxpayers for a ministerial driver to chauffeur her and friends around on the Australia Day weekend is capable of many interpretations, including a misplaced sense of entitlement, arrogance and stupidity.

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. After going to Haylen’s holiday home in Caves Beach, the driver then ferried Haylen, Housing Minister Rose Jackson and their party to the Hunter Valley. Jackson had no idea Haylen had booked the car until it arrived, but nevertheless got in.

Rules governing the use of ministerial cars allow their use for both public and private trips, and government sources were insisting on Sunday that no policies had been breached.

But what a bad look.

Surely, there are enough examples of politicians coming a cropper for transport misuse, even if it falls within the rules, to set off alarm bells: Bronwyn Bishop’s less-than-heroic 2014 decision to spend $5000 on an 80-kilometre charter helicopter flight from Melbourne to Geelong instead of using her Commonwealth car comes to mind.

Frankly, we are astounded that such an easily rorted perk is still on the NSW departmental books. The Dangers of Travel Rorting 101 should be mandatory for all new MPs, because Haylen’s free ride illustrates the problems of leaving something regarded as the spoils of office up to the personal judgment of MPs.

It was only when her pleasure trip on the public purse became public knowledge that Haylen quickly back-pedalled and issued a statement saying she recognised it did “not pass the pub test”, and had made arrangements to repay the $750 costs. But her contrition rang false when she tried to weasel out of it. “Cars and drivers may be used for official and private purposes as is stated within the official guidelines,” she said.

If she recognises her trip did not pass the pub test, why did she take it?

1. She has been the Minns government’s most accident-prone minister. Just months after becoming minister, she was defending a host of jobs for the boys, including the appointment of a Labor favourite to head a bus industry taskforce on a one-year, $442,000 contract. Then a former Labor candidate, Kieren Ash, resigned from Transport for NSW pending the outcome of an investigation into whether he broke departmental rules by doing banned political work while on loan to Haylen’s office.