“Paul was telling me about the Labor Party stall at the fair today,” Minns tells them.
The “fair” is giant agricultural equipment show AgQuip,a three-day event at nearby Gunnedah that draws farmers and businesses from across the state,and which he’ll be dropping into the next day.
“Apparently 100,000 people go to AgQuip every single year;the Labor stall got a grand total of eight people,” Minns deadpans. From the back comes a good-natured shout:“Yes! It’s a big day!” triggering a ripple of mirth.
Chris Minns came to Tamworth to thank Labor diehards for keeping the faith.James Brickwood
The state opposition leader goes on. “One bloke wanted to know the time” – pause – “and another wanted to borrow a biro!”
“But,” he adds,over the laughter. “But! We live in hope! Who knows what will happen in future?”
It’s an opener that could have gone down like a lead balloon in the hands of a less skilled political communicator. But it cuts through with this audience of 40 or 50 Labor diehards,who’ve stuck with the faith while living deep in Nationals heartland.
Minns tells me later,“In Tamworth they know how hard it is to be a Labor member.They want people like me to appreciate that they are waving the flag in enemy territory … to say,‘Thanks,we know it’s tough’.”
It’s his first visit to the town as leader,and he has turned up on a bone-chilling mid-August night flanked by senior upper house frontbencher John Graham and NSW Labor senator Tim Ayres. While there’s no hope of picking up the local seat,it’s part of a flag-flying exercise in the run-up to the state election in just seven months’ time.
Chris Minns at AgQuip,not natural Labor territory.James Brickwood
Minns goes on to address the growing crises in service delivery to the bush,particularly in health and education,before riffing hard on the Coalition’s “out of control” privatisation program,telling them that means fewer state-owned assets to generate the revenue needed for restoring those services.
He ends with a plea to “shower love” on young folk coming through the doors of the local branch. “Contact my office and I will call them direct,” he says. “We’ve got no prospect of being around for another 130 years unless we can renew and inspire young people to be part of this wonderful organisation.”
Tamworth branch president Mick Lawler,square-built and plain-talking,declares the visit “one of the greatest things that has happened to our branch for quite some time”. Personally,he’d like the Labor leader to be giving the Coalition more stick. “But that’s just me … I believe he could be a very,very,good premier for NSW.”
Minns,42,has been in parliament seven-and-a-half years and party leader since June last year.
He passed his first electoral test in February, from the Liberals and retained Strathfield in two of four byelections held that day.
There’s excitement among the Labor team that Minns might have what it takes to win.AAP
There has been little in the way of public polling since ().
Some in the party worry – as they did federally with Anthony Albanese – that Minns is playing it too safe with a small target strategy,though in fairness his policy offering is still largely under wraps.
Despite this,an edgy anticipation is building in Labor ranks – hopes the telegenic leader with the reassuring bedside manner could help them break the Coalition’s near-12- year grip on power.
One of his predecessors says “there is a recognition around town that this is now a real contest”.
Upper house MP Rose Jackson,who’s an ally of Minns but from the minority left faction,and thus occasionally at odds with him,says:“You are always going to have factions,fractions and personality conflicts[within the party]. But if you are doing well,people are happy. People can see Chris is good. We think he can win … and that is just everything.”
Success in politics takes talent,timing,persistence and temperament,among other things. It also takes the one thing a politician can least control – luck. And Minns has had plenty of that.
The luckiest break of all has been of the once seemingly invincible Gladys Berejiklian.
Her successor,the 39-year-old Dominic Perrottet,has been hit with a string of crises,most of the government’s own making.
A budget stuffed with election sweeteners caused by the botched appointment of former Nationals leader John Barilaro to a lucrative trade post in New York.
That also cost the career of former NSW deputy Liberal leader Stuart Ayres,while another minister,. Two other ministers they won’t stand at the next election and two more – David Elliott and Matt Kean – have been at each other’s throats.
But luck can turn. In recent days,a couple of clouds have rolled across Minns’ own horizon. He was accused of acting too slowly against his long-time ally,Labor frontbencher Walt Secord,. A second Labor frontbencher,Tania Mihailuk,,though she has strenuously denied them and blamed their surfacing on a messy preselection battle. Minns will be under pressure not to let this drag on.
The government is also doing its best to portray Minns as a patsy of the state’s unions,as the public grows increasingly unhappy,particularly by rail workers. (He has been urging an end to the rail action.) And Labor will be hoping the Obeid-era scandals that helped trigger its landslide loss in 2011 will have faded from voters’ memories. Nor did the previous management of the party’s head office emerge well from into falsified records of donations funnelled in 2015 through a Chinese Friends of Labor dinner.
NSW Labor MP Walt Secord will bow out of politics after being subject to allegations of bullying.James Brickwood
Minns regularly immerses himself in political histories,a reminder to stay “really fatalistic” about the way fortunes can turn.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a full-blown pessimist,” he says. “But I’m not one of these stupidly optimistic people either.[a Nobel prize-winning US behavioural economist] says there’s this myth that pessimists are unhappy. But they are often pleasantly surprised.”
“The only thing I can really control is what the Labor Party is about. Are we in the middle,are we about common sense? … Part of that is a bit of a daily struggle to keep this big,unwieldy,130-year old party that’s got many component parts and stakeholders and unions and lefty branches and whatever else,on the road,and being seen to be problem solvers and sensible and centrist … I think we have done that.”
Minns has an unusually laid-back style for a political leader. Don’t mistake that for a lack of determination or ambition.
It’s a sign of how hungry Minns is that his large,northeast-facing corner office in the state parliament building – a space traditionally allocated to the opposition leader – has virtually nothing in it,apart from a couple of black sofas,a coffee table and a few papers on the desk.
Otherwise it’s as bare as a medieval monk’s cell. “I’ve no family photos,no books,no artwork,” he acknowledges,when I remark on the Spartan ambience. “That’s because I want to give the impression that this is temporary. We want to work our arses off to get out of this office,not put down roots.”
Minns keeps his office spartan:“I want to give the impression that this is temporary.”James Brickwood
Former leader Jodi McKay – – says generously of Minns:“He knows the great privilege of being a Labor leader. He has prepared his whole life for this. He is smart,he’s going to make a competent premier and I think he is doing well.”
Others grumble he has yet to clearly lay out an alternate road map for government. “I think he is thinking that if Labor just looks reasonable,the electorate will dump the government and maybe that’s the right strategy. If it works he will be regarded as a genius,” gripes one disaffected MP. “The issue is,is Perrottet as toxic as Scott Morrison? I don’t think he is.”
But Minns promises there won’t be much longer to wait until Labor rolls out its wares,undertaking most will be out “before Christmas”.
“The issue is,is Perrottet as toxic as Scott Morrison? I don’t think he is.”
Disaffected Labor MP
He says “scores of policies” have been written and will be laid before the parliamentary budget office for costing,before they are released.
“We are going to be under a lot of pressure to make sure that every dollar is accounted for … The government has racked up[a record] $183 billion worth of gross debt. So,the parameters to spend money are tighter in this upcoming election than arguably at any point in the state’s history.”
Minns’ own southern Sydney seat of Kogarah sits on a knife-edge. Thanks to a recent redistribution,it’s Labor’s most marginal,with about 300 votes between him and oblivion.
That’s why,on a chilly Saturday morning,we find him running one of his regular pop-up “mobile offices” on a street corner in Bexley,armed with a clipboard.
Today,about a dozen locals trickle in from the side streets,with a medley of hyper-local problems:a deserted house on an overgrown block where a stray cat colony has established itself;dead trees;a poorly lit laneway;tolls. Minns listens patiently to each,and where he can help provide a fix,calls a staffer over to plan follow-up action.
It’s the political equivalent of trench warfare:a slog for votes house by house,street by street,block by block.
Minns need to fight for every vote in his electorate,which is on a knife’s edge.James Brickwood
Locally,he’s got heavy hitters lending a hand. One is the former long-time member for Kogarah before him,Cherie Burton.
Another is former Labor premier Morris Iemma,who years ago mentored him onto Hurstville council and later took him on twice as a staffer,once when Iemma was health minister and later when he became premier. Iemma knows this turf well. Some of it used to be in his old electorate.
Iemma says the younger Minns was always “obviously smart”. But now,he says,he’s “realising the potential that a lot of people saw back in those days as a young activist and a young adviser”.
“He has been really successful in imparting that persona of being someone who is reasoned,moderate in his language and approach. He has deliberately gone out of his way not to criticise everything the government does. Even back in those days he was someone who was always prepared to listen to the other side of the argument.”
Iemma believes Minns has “a clear picture of what he believes he needs to do to win;he has moved the ALP back to the position I believe the party has traditionally occupied in NSW,and that’s firmly in the centre of politics focusing on the frontline issues that make and unmake governments.”
Minns rejects the idea of moving to a safer seat. “I don’t want to represent any other community. I’ve only ever lived in the St George area and[it would look] extremely opportunistic. Secondly,someone has to win Kogarah,and I think I’m the best placed person to do it.”
He sees the battle to hold his seat and the larger one of winning the state as two sides of the same coin.
“I don’t think we will win Kogarah if we don’t win the election,” he says. “I’ll be tipped out of politics if we don’t prevail. I’m all in. Every chip is in the middle of the table and it all comes to a head in March.”
There’s a small,cryptic message written in green ink on the Opposition leader’s left hand. “Check George”,it reads.
This,it turns out,is a reminder to make sure young George,aged 5,has his new tie on for school that day.
It’s also a reminder that,like millions of other NSW families,Minns and his wife Anna are juggling the needs of school-aged children as well as their own busy careers (Anna runs a consultancy for non-government start-ups in sustainability).
The Minns family is renovating.James Brickwood
George has two older brothers,Nick,12,who is the budding family entertainer,and Joe,14. Nick recently gave the local constabulary a scare when,sitting in Minns’ electorate office,he found what seemed like a good button to press under the desk. (It turned out to be the panic button.)
The family is currently squeezed into a unit while they oversee a home renovation,adding a two-storey extension to the back of their single-storey,100-year-old brick home in the heart of Kogarah.
Family is of fundamental importance to Minns. Most Wednesday nights for the past 20 years the clan – which includes sister Sarah and younger brother Jimmy,as well as their kids and other extended family members – have gathered at his parents’ house for dinner.
Father,John,is a former school principal while mother,Cara,set up and ran her own small law firm. Minns attended local Catholic schools (his faith is important to him though he rarely discusses it) and he began a degree at Sydney University before setting it aside to help with the campaign of then-Labor parliamentary candidate Kevin Greene. That campaign was also where he got together with Anna,then a leading light of Young Labor.
Minns came to the early attention of senior ALP figures like Carl Scully,Iemma and John Robertson,who each put him on their staff at various points.
Robertson,who hired him as his chief of staff,says,“I joked you should always have someone smarter than you in that position … it was true with Chris. He’s got an extraordinary intellect,he is very well-read,and he is well-grounded”.
Minns also spent time at the heart of Labor’s political machine,as assistant secretary in its Sussex Street office. So far,so standard for an aspiring party apparatchik. But there have been a couple of unconventional deviations from that script.
In 2006 he stepped out of the hothouse of Macquarie Street to become a retained (on-call) firefighter while finishing his degree. He also worked in the non-profit sector (for the Inspire Foundation) and in 2010 he and Anna took the family to the US while he completed a masters at Princeton University.
Family is of fundamental importance to Minns,who is the father of three boys.James Brickwood
After he entered parliament in 2015,then-Labor leader Luke Foley had him on the frontbench within a year. “He was clearly a standout,” Foley says. “But perversely,that also kind of held him back. The fact he was Princeton-educated,of the party’s[dominant] Right and not a bad looker meant he came in with all sorts of people commentating that he was the next best thing … so he kind of sat back a bit.”
Mischievous opponents tagged him Simba (after the young princeling inThe Lion King).
Minns recalls,“When you’ve been an adviser,you often think,well,how hard can it be? I rapidly realised that I had a lot to learn.”
One of his early missteps – at least in the eyes of union leaders – was to question the powerful role unions had in the party when.
Gerard Hayes,secretary of the heavyweight Health Services Union,was one of those who challenged Minns. He says the opposition leader has now changed his mind.
“He has,absolutely,” Hayes tells theHerald. “We worked it through. He now works very well with us,he is very supportive and takes advice … This is not for a minute the unions wagging the dog. We are complementary.”
Chris Minns (far left) with other members of Young Labor.Peter Rae
Keen eyes have noted Minns has yet to meet demands by the nurses’ union for mandated patient-to-nurse ratios in the state’s hospitals – a measure Hayes opposes because he fears the impact on his own members,which include allied health workers and hospital cleaners.
But Minns denies his position is dictated by a debt to Hayes,who played a key role in the sequence of events that led to McKay resigning and Minns’ subsequent elevation.
He says Labor is still in talks with the nurses association and his task is to “find a way of getting safe work rates for nurses in a practical way that’s affordable”.
“I had a somewhat fractured relationship with many of[the union leaders] for a few years,” he acknowledges. “Eventually,we ended up talking and[I realised] they were trying to solve the same problems I’m solving … I just kind of thought … a lot of these people are working incredibly hard to solve workplace problems and the nature of modern capitalism. Why would I want to be antagonistic to them when we can work together to solve it?”
On the business side,he says he’s met “every single industry group …[and] I also talk to a few bankers and[venture capitalists] pretty regularly,too. I think they have got a better sense ofwhere the economy will be in the next couple of years.”
He’s less keen to canvass discussions he might be having with the sizeable crossbench in the lower house. Perrottet has already slipped into minority government. If Labor falls short of a majority at the election,Minns’ fate could be in crossbench hands.
“I do think there will be a fight over change,whether it’s us,Teals,the Greens,One Nation … whoever else. My sense is that a big proportion of the population wants change.”
Perrottet,for all that he’s a few years younger than Minns,came to the premiership having served in three of the state’s most senior portfolios:industrial relations,finance and treasury.
By contrast,Minns has been the opposition spokesman for water,and then transport,before becoming leader. Only one member of his front bench – former leader Michael Daley – has ministerial experience.
Is he ready to take government on that record?
“We’re going to have to put our shoulder into what a new government looks like,” he concedes. “You’re right,it’s not going to be people with years and years of experience in senior positions. But it’ll be highly motivated,intelligent people that are actually problem solvers.” He name-checks his senior frontbenchers,including shadow treasurer Daniel Mookhey – who’s proving a formidable interrogator on the Barilaro scandal and has run the government hard on issues like mismanagement of the workers’ compensation scheme,icare.
“I think a lot of people will say a fresh set of eyes is what we need in this state. If I can do a better job of explaining that to the community,then we can get real momentum as we head into the election campaign.”
Minns has proven to colleagues that he’s up to being leader,Foley says. “He has to prove it every day now. The next election is up for grabs,and he’s a live chance. But it is far from inevitable.”
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