It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.
Our Labor family is ready to fight for our great state!
NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns will stand on bread and butter Labor causes in his fight to seize government, revealing dual policies to address teacher shortages and domestic manufacturing when he fronts the party’s state conference on Sunday.
In its first term, a Labor government would convert 10,000 teachers from temporary to permanent positions in NSW public schools, Minns will say.
Labor will also build new trains in NSW and begin procurement to replace the ageing Tangara fleet in its first four years, promising to create at least 1000 long-term jobs.
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We are ready to win’: Minns plots path to Labor victory in NSW
A defiant Chris Minns has pledged to bring more manufacturing back to NSW, to add 10,000 more teachers to the state’s education system, and ruled out an asset sell-off in an energetic pre-election pitch less than 200 days out from the NSW state election.
The Labor leader headlined the second day of the NSW Labor State Conference in Sydney over the weekend, which emerged as a hero’s homecoming for Anthony Albanese on Saturday and a rousing battle cry to members and volunteers on Sunday
Ahead of the conference, Mr Minns unveiled a first tranche of election promises, including a plan to manufacture Tangara trains in the state which would create 1000 new, permanent jobs. He also revealed another plan to convert temporary teaching positions into permanent roles to boost retention in the state’s schools.
Mr Minns’ education election commitment will create 10,000 more permanent teaching positions in a plan designed to stem the flow of teachers leaving the profession.
“We can’t have a situation where teachers are leaving our schools because they don’t know whether they will have a job next term, or next year. Teaching should be a job you want to stay in for your entire career,” Mr Minns said.
Less than five months out from the March 2023 election, the event functioned as the political leader’s most high-profile introduction to Labor supporters at a time when the party is regarded as a genuine contender at the next election.
On stage, Mr Minns issued a blunt question to his supporters: “Does anyone truly believe that this government’s best days are in front of them?”
Keeper of the flame
The visibly confident party leader took the stage at the conference after an introduction from his wife and former union official, Anna Minns, who reflected on how the pair had met at a western Sydney Pizza Hut working on the Georges River political campaign.
“When Chris decides he wants to achieve something, he works relentlessly and tirelessly, until he does,” she told the crowd.
“I’m familiar with that flame in his eyes. I first saw that flame when we first met … I saw that flame when he wanted to work for the fire brigade, when he decided he wanted to study overseas, and when he wanted to run for parliament in 2015.
And I see that flame more than ever now, the determination to deliver a Labor government in New South Wales in 2023.”
Mrs Minns, who is a former Electrical Trades Union official and now heads a recycling business, spoke of her husband’s “unwavering sense of social justice, fairness and humility”, which she said underpinned his approach to party leadership.
“Those values have shaped Chris, they are instinctive,” she said. “We are ready to win.”
On Saturday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addressed the crowd in an emotionally charged display where he reflected on his four decades in the ALP. He threw his weight behind Mr Minns and said the state’s party had learnt lessons from the past and was now ready to win, even as he made a veiled reference to discord playing out behind closed doors.
”That strength is our passion … and the arguments and debates we have here matter, the ideas that we grapple with, the resolutions that we move – they shape the future of our nation. Passions run high because we know the stakes are high,” Mr Albanese said.
“These victories bring heavy responsibility, but it’s a great reward. It’s why Chris Minns and his team are seeking government in March.”
Factional infighting
But as the prime minister and the NSW opposition leader fronted the conference, a tense factional battle over upper house preselections was threatening to boil over into public view.
Shadow cabinet member and regional Labor representative Mick Veitch was fighting for survival after coming under threat from a preselection by barrister Cameron Murphy, who has the support of the powerful CFMEU and the party’s soft left faction.
The upper house veteran – who was elected in 2007 and holds the regional NSW, agriculture and Western NSW portfolios in shadow cabinet – was relegated to an unwinnable slot on Sunday, depriving the party of a valuable regional voice in party room.
Mr Minns and party officials attempted unsuccessfully to temper the spat ahead of the conference, but by Sunday the preselection race took place with Mr Murphy securing the third winnable slot.
In a reference to some of the tensions simmering in the room, Mr Minns described the party as a family that would inevitably endure disagreements but would always put the state and the public first.
“Just like any family meeting, you’ll never get everyone agreeing on every issue all the time. But our differences are not more important than our shared belief in a better New South Wales,” he said.
