McKay says she can beat Gladys Berejiklian and education will be a ‘critical issue’ under her leadership
Newly elected New South Wales Labor leader Jodi McKay says she is “more than a match” for the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and she is not going to be pretend the two women are anything alike.
McKay’s election on Saturday was a landmark moment in NSW politics, making it the first time the premier and opposition leader have both been women.
Continue reading...McKay defeats Chris Minns, winning 63% of the vote of of 11,000 rank-and-file members
More than three months after New South Wales Labor’s bruising state election defeat, the party has regrouped to appoint Jodi McKay its new opposition leader.
State Labor MPs cast their secret votes for the contenders Chris Minns and Jodi McKay, both from the party’s right faction, at a tense meeting on Saturday.
Continue reading...Engineers say changes are years overdue and obvious before Opal or Mascot Towers evacuations
Australia’s engineers say the recommendations from Opal Tower have still not been acted on, as the Mascot Towers apartment buildings in Sydney continued to sink further into the ground this week.
An emergency report into the cracked Opal Tower was completed in February by prominent university deans of architecture after the brand-new building was dramatically evacuated in December.
Continue reading...Barton Deakin voices support for reforms designed to bolster transparency and integrity
One of Australia’s biggest lobbyist firms has said it “strongly supports” the introduction of an independent commissioner to investigate and oversee the sector.
The New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption is currently probing the weaknesses in the regime governing NSW lobbyists, and its chief commissioner, Peter Hall, has warned reforms are now “overdue”.
Continue reading...Draft report says Warragamba dam changes would affect Aboriginal historical sites
A leaked draft report has predicted world heritage areas of the Blue Mountains would be “permanently” changed by a controversial New South Wales government plan to raise a dam wall.
The state government is proposing to raise the walls of the Warragamba Dam by 14 metres to mitigate the impact of floods – a move that environmental activists say would flood Unesco-protected bushland, and endanger 50 historic Indigenous sites.
Continue reading...Legal settlement reached after Acciona alleged it was misled over the complexity of the project and demanded $1.1bn
The consortium building Sydney’s eastern suburbs light rail project will receive up to $576m extra from the New South Wales government under a settlement deal which takes the total cost to $2.7bn.
The light rail linking the CBD to Randwick and Kingsford was originally meant to cost taxpayers $1.6bn.
Continue reading...Nationals MPs are given prominent roles in areas that hurt the Coalition at the election
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and her deputy, John Barilaro, have unveiled the new cabinet lineup, giving a renewed focus to the regions after the countryside swung away from the coalition at the state election.
But critics have been quick to point out there are fewer women with portfolios than there were before the reshuffle.
Continue reading...Government clings to power despite big gains from minor parties and independents
Gladys Berejiklian has said she is confident the Coalition will return to government in New South Wales with a razor-thin majority as counting continues after Saturday’s state election.
The premier, who is the daughter of Armenian migrants, reiterated her objection to comments by the Labor leader, Michael Daley, about young Sydneysiders leaving the city and being replaced by “Asians”, which surfaced in the final week of the campaign, suggesting her background had helped her connect with voters.
Continue reading...Premier says she will work closely with minor parties as prospect of minority government remains
Gladys Berejiklian has led the Coalition to a third term in government in New South Wales despite a rising tide of minor parties and independents, and has become the first woman elected premier of the state at a general election.
Many seats were still too close to call on Saturday evening but one thing was certain – the night had been a huge disappointment for Labor, with no chance of forming government and no major improvement in their statewide primary vote compared with the election four years earlier.
Continue reading...There’s a good chance Saturday’s poll will produce a hung parliament. Here’s how to make your vote count – and where to buy your democracy sausage
Almost 5.3 million people are enrolled to vote at more than 8,000 voting stations in Saturday’s state election. New South Wales has fixed terms, with elections held on the fourth Saturday in March every four years since 1995. About a quarter of voters cast their ballot before election day in 2015, and this is expected to rise in 2019. Almost 850,000 people had voted by Thursday morning.
Continue reading...NSW Labor leader says ‘no offence’ meant after video surfaces of him saying ‘our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in’
The New South Wales opposition leader, Michael Daley is under sustained pressure over his comments in a 2018 video in which he said young Sydneysiders were leaving and being replaced by workers from Asia.
Despite repeatedly apologising “if anyone took offence” Daley insisted his comments were not racist or dogwhistling and were about housing affordability in Sydney.
Continue reading...Gabrielle Chan finds bush electorates that were once locked in for the National party are now under siege from a variety of challengers
The state seat of Barwon is about as rusted-on as you can get.
About the same size as Germany, its south-western end is the Labor-dominated town of Broken Hill. Most of the rest is committed National party country and has been that way since 1950.
Continue reading...The former Labor minister will face a new trial after the court of criminal appeal quashed his conviction
Former Labor minister Ian Macdonald maintains he’s “absolutely” innocent after a New South Wales appeal court quashed his conviction for misconduct in public office and he walked from jail ahead of a retrial.
The former ALP politician had been in custody since 2017, when he was jailed for 10 years - with a minimum term of seven years - after being found guilty of two counts of wilful misconduct in public office.
Continue reading...Eleven people left ill in Sydney and six near Ballarat after Australia Day long weekend music festivals
A teenage boy has been found with almost 600 capsules and $2,000 cash at a Sydney music festival where several people left critically ill due to drug use.
Six young men aged under 25 left the Hardcore Till I Die festival at Sydney Olympic Park on Saturday in critical or serious conditions. All were either stable or discharged from hospital by Sunday.
Continue reading...Five mayors warn their towns could run out of water within weeks and call for their needs to be prioritised over irrigators
The mayors of several western New South Wales councils have warned their townships face major water crises within weeks and have urged the state government to impose a one-month embargo on irrigators pumping from the upper part of the Darling River system.
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