Kean,who first sought to put NSW on the national stage with ambitious targets to tackle climate change and grow the economy through renewables,was more than happy to take his state global. Climate change,as well as a women-led economic COVID-19 recovery,are Kean’s top priorities for NSW in his additional role as Treasurer.
Glasgow awaited:NSW Treasurer and Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean.Dominic Lorrimer
Those two issues,not traditionally the domain of conservatives,are critical to what Kean,40,describes as a new generation of leadership for his party. With the three most senior Liberals in the government all 40 or under (that also goes for Premier Dominic Perrottet and deputy leader Stuart Ayres),Kean clearly sees youth as their best-selling point when the Coalition goes to an election seeking a fourth term.
Kean’s commitment to climate change is not new. He gained international attention when images of Sydney choking under thick orange bushfire smoke were beamed around the world in December 2019. He made a bold statement that then premier Gladys Berejiklian was not prepared to make:“This is not normal and doing nothing is not a solution.”
The following month,when Kean called for the federal government to abandon its use of Kyoto carry-over credits to meet its 2030 emissions target,Prime Minister Scott Morrison scoffed that “most of the federal cabinet wouldn’t even know who Matt Kean was”. But ambassadors from major economies knew him,and after NSW unveiled its significant energy road map months later,Kean’s office was inundated with offers of meetings with foreign governments and leading global companies interested in investing in NSW.
While the NSW Coalition has runs on the board when it comes to driving emissions-reduction policy,it enjoys no such record on Kean’s second priority. Despite a popular female premier leading the NSW government for almost five years,Perrottet has inherited a male-dominated cabinet. With Berejiklian gone,he has just two female Liberal women on his frontbench (a situation he has promised to remedy with a summer reshuffle) and his premiership got off to rocky start with two media appearances in a pub,where the focus was on blokes and beers.
Holding on to women voters without Berejiklian at the helm will be tough and Kean and Perrottet have to find a way to shake the blokeyness. One of the centrepiece’s of the pair’s COVID economic recovery is the government’s single largest investment in tackling domestic violence. Kean also wants to step into childcare,usually a federal responsibility,and make it easier and affordable for women to work more.
Kean is convinced the change in leadership,and therefore direction,will keep his government relevant and electable. “We have a new generation of Liberal leadership focused on the future and opportunities that come with that,” he says. For a 10-year-old government,fresh faces and new priorities will be critical if it is to convince the electorate to give them another four years.
But will it be enough? Ultimately,state governments deliver services – and is there any worse metaphor for an ageing government than a fleet full of cracked trams that will throw public transport into chaos for the next 18 months?
Not only will tens of thousands of Sydney commuters be affected,but the inner west light rail debacle – which the government,for the moment,blames on the Spanish manufacturer of the trams – highlights potential problems with the state’s preference to continually buy trains,buses and ferries from overseas.
The cracked trams,as well as problem-plagued ferries and the heavily delayed intercity trains,have given NSW Labor enough ammunition to prosecute its case to build transport fleets locally. Even if the government can prove the Spanish are to blame for the trams,voters will not readily cut them slack.
The visions and ambitions of Kean’s new generation are refreshing,but they are not the usual battlegrounds that state elections are fought on. Labor,also boasting a generational change with a young leader in Chris Minns,will stick to its bread and butter of tolls,cost of living,housing and public transport.
Kean nearly made a flying visit to Glasgow. However,matters of state stopped him. His first budget estimates as Treasurer and his government’s precarious hold on power in the lower house killed the trip at the last minute. A voice on the global environment stage would have been a huge coup for NSW,but not one that voters are likely to remember at the polls in 2023 if the NSW government cannot even get its trams back on track.
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