‘Contempt for taxpayer’: Haylen to pay back cost of personal Hunter Valley tour

Premier Chris Minns issued a statement saying his minister’s conduct had been “unacceptable” and said he had instructed the NSW Cabinet Office to provide advice on changing guidelines over the use of ministerial cars “so this can’t happen again”.

“It’s not on for drivers to be used in this way,” he said.

The party dined at Brokenwood Estate, where the set menu is $105 per person, before wines are paired.

Haylen and Jackson took the trip amid a long-running industrial dispute playing out in both of their portfolios. The government has been locked in tense negotiations with the state’s rail unions over a pay deal for several months, while industrial action crippled the rail network in mid-January. At the same time, dozens of public psychiatrists have also quit over a pay dispute that has placed significant strain on the state’s mental health service.

Opposition Leader Mark Speakman slammed both ministers over the trip, labelling it a “disgrace” and calling on them to resign.

“The mental health system is in crisis. We’ve seen extraordinary disruptions to our public transport system, and yet we’ve got two ministers of the crown off on a jolly at the taxpayers’ expense,” he said.

While Jackson was on the trip, she was not involved in organising the ministerial driver, and Haylen said she took full responsibility for organising it.

In NSW, government ministers and the opposition leader are granted the use of a ministerial vehicle and driver.

The vehicles can be used for both public and private purposes, and government sources were insisting on Sunday that no policies had been breached by the trip. But the shadow treasurer, Damien Tudehope, questioned whether the trip may have breached work health and safety rules set by the civil service that place caps on how long ministerial drivers can work for.

“Generally in respect of long shifts by a driver you would have a program in place where the driver would be replaced [when they] had reached a certain time period,” he said.

In a statement, Haylen conceded the driver should not have been used.

“I attended a private event on January 25,” she wrote. “Cars and drivers may be used for official and private purposes as is stated within the official guidelines.

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“I recognise, however, that this does not pass the pub test, and as such I have made arrangements to repay the money to the Premier’s Department.”

Speakman said: “Now that they’ve been caught, minister Haylen says she’ll pay it back – that’s not accountability, that’s an admission of guilt,” he said.

“And worse, they forced a government driver into a gruelling 13-hour shift.”

Toby Warnes, the secretary of the RTBU, said while he would “never begrudge” the minister a day out with friends, “a chauffer driven car for a 446-kilometre trip to a winery is a luxury most of the state’s rail workers could only dream of”.

However, he said, “we’re more worried about finding a fix to the current rail dispute than in delving into the transport minister’s weekend activities”.

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