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NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen has announced she is resigning from the portfolio after a series of car expense scandals.
Haylen has been under pressure after it was revealed she tasked a taxpayer-funded driver to take her to a winery lunch and drop her child off at a weekend sport in Sydney.
On Tuesday, she announced she was stepping down from her cabinet post, but will continue to serve in her local electorate of Summer Hill.
“I have made mistakes, people aren’t perfect,” she told reporters during a snap press conference, adding she had notified the NSW Premier Chris Minns of her resignation.
“I did not break the rules, but I acknowledge that that’s not the only test here. I’ve let the public down and I’m very sorry for that.”
NSW Premier Chris Minns had earlier said he would not sack Jo Haylen over the scandal. Source: AAP / Dan Himbrechts
The transport minister promised to pay back the $750 cost of the trip and acknowledged it did not pass the “pub test”.
Earlier on Tuesday, Minns said he would not sack Haylen over the trips, which were permitted under ministerial rules.
Regarding the use of a driver to take Haylen’s child to sport, Minns said the trip was primarily to take Haylen to work, and that her child was dropped off en route.
“In other words, the trip wasn’t so the kids could go to the sport on the weekends; the trip was so that she’d get to work,” he said.
Minns also defended the decision to use a ministerial driver to take Haylen and Labor frontbencher Rose Jackson to lunch at a Hunter Valley winery over the Australia Day long weekend. The 446km round trip from Sydney lasted 13 hours.
Minns also said, “based on the information I have at the moment”, he believed the regulations on government drivers should be changed.
“If there’s other information and it comes to light and it’s presented to me … I have to take that into consideration, and it would weigh very heavily on me,” he told 2GB radio.
