New South Wales Labor leader Chris Minns has looked to galvanise party faithful 160 days out from the state election in March 2023.
He used a speech to a NSW Labor conference to promise a locally built fleet of trains to replace NSW’s ageing rail stock and 10,000 extra teachers.
“We are ready for the challenge, we want the responsibility,” Minns said on Sunday.
The opposition leader said he couldn’t fault everything the Coalition had done.
“But does anyone truly believe this government’s best days are in front of them?” Minns said.
He repeated promises to boost healthcare funding and nurse ranks, lift a public service wage cap, end privatisation and curb “rampant overdevelopment”.
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Labor deputy Prue Car said Minns would be a premier everyone could be proud of.
“We know that going into this next election is going to be tough, is going to be tight,” she said.
NSW’s transport network and teacher shortage have been two of the biggest issues this year, with union members in both sectors holding multiple strikes.
Minns said he would have NSW building its own train, tram, bus and ferry fleets again.
“We just need a government with the will and the belief to do it,” he said.
Replacing the state’s train network would be the first step under his hopeful future government.
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On teachers, Minns hoped to end the casualisation of the teacher workforce, creating 10,000 fixed teaching roles in the state by moving temporary workers into permanent positions.
“We won’t just tell them they’re valued, we’ll show them,” Minns said.
The NSW Coalition government, led by premier Dominic Perrottet, on Sunday sought to head off Minns’ pledge, making a similar promise to shift 10,000 temporary teachers into permanent positions.
Education minister Sarah Mitchell blamed unions for delaying earlier action on the shift, which would also see student learning support officers also moved to permanent roles.
More than 800 delegates have attended the conference at the weekend, where they heard the party’s war chests were ready for next year and Labor galvanised by its federal election win in 2022.
Minns is hoping to secure Labor’s first victory in NSW since 2011 with his party having sat on the opposition benches for more than a decade.