Natalie Ward
Deputy Leader of the NSW Liberals
Shadow Minister for Transport and Infrastructure
Shadow Minister for Sport
Graham ordered public service and consultants to model electorate impacts of toll reform options
The Minns Government has directed taxpayer funded consultants and public servants to model the electorate level impacts of toll reform options. That is not public administration. It is politics.
Documents released to Parliament show that in January 2025, while four toll reform options were under active consideration, the Transport Minister’s office ordered modelling to assess how each option would affect individual electorates.
Electorates are political constructs. They are not transport metrics. They are not economic metrics. They are not congestion metrics.
There is no public interest in using taxpayer resources to understand the electorate implications of different toll reform options. The ICAC has made clear that an improper purpose arises where public power is exercised for a purpose foreign to that power, or where partisan advantage becomes relevant to decision making.
The Ministerial Code of Conduct also makes Ministers responsible for the actions of their offices and they are required to always act in the public interest.
By the end of December 2024, the Government had signed an MOU with concessionaires and entered live negotiations.
Against that backdrop, The Minns Government direction to model how reform options would impact individual electorates had no legitimate purpose, was not in the public interest and was an unethical misuse of public resources.
During a period in which the Government has refused to disclose detail under claims of cabinet confidentiality and commercial in confidence, it was using the public service to assess how different options would affect its electoral position.
Once a deal is struck, there is no going back.
The Opposition supports toll reform. But transparency and integrity matter.
The Minister must answer:
- Why was ordering electorate modelling in the public interest?
- Does he believe this was an appropriate use of taxpayer resources?
- Was it shared beyond the Minister’s office?
- Will he be invoking the ‘Jo Haylen’ defence, saying he knows nothing about what happens in his office, on Toll Reform or this work - despite leading the reform for over 1000 days