NSW minister Ryan Park used ministerial car for 456km trip from Sydney to Jindabyne during ski season
The trip to the Snowy Mountains on Thursday 29 August 2024 was made at the height of the ski season, during the final weeks of the Interschools ski races, in which Park's son was a competitor.
The trip between NSW Parliament House in Macquarie Street and Jindabyne was listed in ministerial car logs released under an order for papers earlier in April.
The minister's son attended a high school in the Snowy Mountains at the time of the trip.
An earlier release of travel logs in March, reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, revealed Park made two trips to Thredbo in November and December of the same year, using a ministerial driver to take him to the resort town to meet his family.
Ministerial cars could be used for private purposes under the rules in place until February this year.
The logs do not record how Park returned from Jindabyne in August. They show a NSW government car was used on 30 August in Park's Keira electorate, which covers Wollongong, and another car was used for 'document delivery' from parliament to the minister's house in Corrimal, in Wollongong's north.
Park's ministerial diaries suggest he held two meetings on 29 August at his ministerial office or Parliament House.
But an analysis of the diaries, social media and press releases do not show any formal events in Jindabyne on 29 or 30 August.
Ministerial diaries are limited in scope and generally disclose only third-party meetings.
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On 29 August Park issued a press release apologising for birth trauma suffered by women which had been highlighted by a parliamentary inquiry – but he did not hold a media event on that issue.
On 30 August, he was quoted in a press release about a new breast screening service in Maitland, but social media photos of the event do not show him there.
Asked about the trip, Park did not provide any explanation or details of business conducted.
The minister also took a trip in a ministerial car from Albury to Jindabyne – a distance of more than 250km – on 6 September 2023, returning home to Corrimal on 7 September.
Park's social media posts on 8 September that year show him having visited Jindabyne ambulance station and Jindabyne HealthOne – a NSW government-funded health hub – with the member for Monaro, Steve Whan.
Park said in relation to this trip: 'In September 2023, I attended ministerial business in Jindabyne.
'These trips were in accordance with the rules at the time, and I've always followed the relevant guidelines.
'We inherited guidelines for ministerial driver use that had too many grey areas.
'But we accept those guidelines needed to be tightened, and the Premier has since changed those guidelines.'
In February this year, Jo Haylen resigned as transport minister after it was revealed she had used her ministerial car and driver to take her and some friends to lunch at a vineyard in the Hunter Valley and back on the Australia Day long weekend.
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That involved a 13-hour 446km round trip for the driver from Sydney to Haylen's holiday house at Caves Beach, and then to a Hunter Valley winery and back.
Haylen admitted the winery lunch trip failed the 'pub test', although it was within the rules as they were then.
Haylen subsequently admitted she had taken another trip to the Hunter Valley with her husband using a ministerial car in 2024.
The premier, Chris Minns, said in February he had discussed the 2024 trip with Haylen before she resigned and while 'there was work that took place, in all candour [it was] mainly over the phone and on Zoom'.
'We were both in agreement [that] it didn't justify having a driver on the day, and as a result of that, her position just wasn't tenable in the NSW cabinet.
'Work took place on the day, but certainly not extensive enough to justify having a driver.'
The premier said at the time that the government would not conduct an audit of other MPs' use of ministerial cars.
Cabinet had discussed the issue and Minns was not aware of any analogous circumstances, he said in February, adding he trusted his colleagues.
Minns tightened the rules governing the use of drivers immediately after Haylen's resignation, banning the use of ministerial cars 'for exclusively private purposes'.
The rules now say that drivers can only be used for official business.
The Ministers' Office Handbook states: 'Any use of a driver for private purposes must be incidental to the discharge of the minister's official duties. 'Incidental use' includes: stopping for a private purpose while travelling to or from the workplace or other place where the minister has official business or performing minor errands that assist a Minister to perform their official duties (eg – dropping off or picking up a child from school).'
In relation to the trips to Thredbo, Park told the Sydney Morning Herald in March that the trips had allowed him to 'reunite with family while undertaking work on a handful of other occasions'.
Park defended the use of the ministerial cars, saying his job was '24/7' and they allowed him to 'perform my duties while commuting, whether to review briefs of correspondence, or confer with my colleagues'.
In both cases, Park was joining his family for a weekend away after they had left without him the day before. Before the November trip, he attended a cancer fundraiser on the Friday evening. In December, he had been attending the NSW drug summit before a national health ministers meeting on the day before the journey.
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