CHRIS MINNS ADDRESS TO THE NSW LABOR COUNTRY CONFERENCE
ORANGE EX-SERVICES CLUB, ORANGE/SATURDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2026
Thank you so much Janelle, thank you delegates, thank you Prime Minister.
It’s wonderful to see a packed room in the middle of regional NSW on a Saturday morning, all committed to the Labor Party.
All hard working members of our wonderful organisation.
And a special moment for me walking down the middle of the aisle, on Valentine’s Day with the Prime Minister.
I want to thank you again and include the Prime Minister here for the first New South Wales Labor conference of any kind as a second term re-elected, increased majority federal Labor government.
Travelling the country of course and going to other Labor Party conferences, but I want you to remember, that New South Wales recorded its largest and best result in this state since 1972 – 1972.
Where else would you rather be than Orange, on the beautiful land of the Wiradjuri people, and I want to thank the traditional owners and thank them for their welcome and having us on their land this weekend.
I have to say most of the NSW Labor caucus is here, but one member of our caucus deserves a special mention.
And I know you’re all going to join me in welcoming back our great friend – the Deputy Premier of New South Wales – and a rock of this government from day one – Prue Car.
I know Prue very well, having worked very closely with her for years now to get the government elected and then through some of the difficult challenges over the last three years.
And I also know something about Prue.
She won’t want to talk about herself, and she certainly won’t want to list her accomplishments, so I’m going to talk about it a little bit.
Prue is the busiest reforming Education Minister in this state in a generation.
When she took the job, our teachers were the lowest paid in Australia and for the first time ever, more of them now were resigning rather than retiring from that profession.
But since becoming the Minister for Education in our state, Prue has given our teachers the biggest pay rise in a generation and they’re now the best paid teachers in Australia.
In addition to that, converting more than 17,000 teachers and support staff from casual positions to permanent, reliable jobs.
I can report to you delegates three years in the Labor government, that it’s working.
The teacher vacancy rate – so the number of vacancies and holes that we have in the teaching professions and positions in our schools – has dropped by 61% in New South Wales public schools.
And cancelled or merged classes have halved.
When I was at school and the teacher would be away, a substitute teacher would come in.
And under the Coalition government for 12 years, no teacher would come in.
The kids would be down on the back oval playing sport, not getting educated at all.
As a result of this investment, as a result of this pay increase, we have now got a teacher in front of kids in public schools in New South Wales.
I can report to you at the same time, the government has built or upgraded 50 schools and as some of them opened last week, 1,000s of students walked into brand new campuses right across New South Wales.
We love Prue, we need her back in the cabinet, and we’re so happy to have her back at work.
Can I also acknowledge one other Labor colleague, the 61st member of our caucus and the new Labor member for Kiama – Katelin McInerney.
Katelyn has been at this conference as a delegate, as a member, as a candidate, but she returns to country conference this year as a member of parliament – congratulations.
In a short period of time that she’s been a member of our caucus she’s been a breath of fresh air.
She’s got a massive future in front of her, there’s no doubt about it.
But Katelyn would be the first to acknowledge that she wouldn’t be here without the 500 New South Wales Labor volunteers who had her back.
Knocking on get this – wait for it – 60,000 doors in that by-election campaign.
This was a magnificent campaign and stealing a seat from the New South Wales Liberal Party, whilst the Labor Party is in government is very, very difficult and very, very rare.
And there’s no doubt that Dom, George, David and the team have got a lot to be proud of.
But I want to make it clear – and this is the truth – no one is interested in a cocky Labor government.
The worst thing we could do right now is start a victory lap or take our eye off the ball even for a second.
Right now, millions of Australians are looking around and considering their votes at the next state election.
Because of that, we have a chance to speak to people who might not have voted Labor for a long time.
People who are taking in the circus of the Coalition, who are looking at the state of the National Party and starting to wonder if they really are the parties that they promise to be.
I want to give you an example and focus on one particular policy area – the energy transition in our state.
By any measure, one of the biggest and most consequential challenges facing probably any jurisdiction in the country.
And I want to lay out the problem in front of us, the one that we inherited when we won government in March of 2023, because this is the truth.
Coal fired power stations have been the engine of our economy, but they’re old and they’re reaching the end of their life.
And of course, they have negative implications and consequences for our environment.
We can extend them for a few years, but the hard truth is that the end is coming soon.
That means that by 2030 we need to add 12 new gigawatts of energy into our system, which is about three quarters of the energy that we currently produce from coal fired power stations.
That’s the challenge in front of us – the largest and biggest energy transition in the shortest space of time in the history of New South Wales.
If we don’t produce that energy, there will be a disaster for our state.
Any serious party needs a plan to do it and I have to say not that long ago to their credit – the Coalition did have a plan for it.
Seven years ago, with Labor’s support, they produced a road map for energy – and at the time they loved it.
Here are some of the reviews from National Party MPs.
One of them said: “renewable energy zones are an important direction for our state. Renewable energy provides opportunities for our area. This is particularly true in the regions.”
Another was even more excited: “I want my electorate to become the leader in the use of renewable energy sources”.
Another said: “renewable energy presents lots of opportunities. Wind turbines, components manufacturing, green hydrogen, solar panel recycling. Genuinely, the possibilities are endless.”
Now delegates that wasn’t Bob Brown, that was the National Party Member for Dubbo.
Are you seeing a change now that they’re in opposition?
In country towns across New South Wales, these same people haven’t just changed their tune, they’re saying the exact opposite thing.
Claiming that renewable energy and the road map will destroy regional New South Wales.
The same road map that they were involved in designing.
Is there any wonder that people are questioning whether this still is the same honest, upfront, fair dinkum party that for many people, their grandparents used to support?
Like anyone in my position, we want fair outcomes.
But we’re on a deadline here.
And delay and more bureaucracy, more red tape is not one of the options available to us.
The Labor Party can’t make cheap promises and stop these projects.
What we can promise, is that we will genuinely work with communities and make sure that we get good outcomes for regional communities so everybody can share in the bounty that changes – the revolution that’s coming with this energy change.
Under Penny Sharpe, we’ve increased renewable energy by 70%.
We’ve made a pragmatic decision to extend the life of the power station at no cost to the New South Wales taxpayer.
And, just as the AWU have been arguing for, for over a decade – we’re backing the East Coast gas reservation so Australian gas is used to benefit Australian jobs, Australian industry and Australian families.
Delegates when Labor came to office three years ago we lost 12% of our nursing workforce in a single year – 12%.
Our paramedics were some of the lowest paid in the country.
And we were seeing record numbers of police leaving the profession altogether – without enough new recruits to fill those ranks.
Now as a result, we saw crime increasing, identified by civic leaders, mayors, business leaders as a growing issue in regional communities.
There is a fundamental truth here that the Labor movement has always understood but seems to elude the conservatives on the other side of the chamber.
You can’t provide great services if you can’t attract good talent, and you can’t attract good talent if you don’t pay them a decent and fair wage.
That was bad enough in the city, but it was far worse in country towns and regional New South Wales.
Essential workers were leaving – and they were leaving because of one thing, one policy, one ideology that wrecked New South Wales for 12 years – and that was the wages cap.
A deliberate policy to hold down the wages and conditions of what is for us, the biggest employer in Australia – the New South Wales government.
I’m proud to report to conference that one of the first things we did as a Labor Government in this state is to abolish that rotten cap.
And I have to say, the biggest beneficiary of that decision – and the decision of this party and this conference, has been regional New South Wales.
So let’s talk about the teacher vacancy rate that we mentioned earlier in relation to education.
I can report to all of you that it’s fallen – the teacher vacancy rate has fallen – by 96% in Kiama.
By 87% in Ballina, by 74% in Clarence and by 76% in the seat of the Maitland.
Think about the hardest places to staff in regional New South Wales – isolated communities – has fallen by 60% in the electorate of Barwon, 60% in the electorate of Wagga, and 60% right here in the community of Orange.
Labor has never been a party that’s believed in wage suppression we know where that leads.
And there’s more good news.
We’ve been able to recruit – wait for this, as a result of removing the wages cap and the leadership of the Minister for Health Ryan Park – an additional, an extra, 2,000 nurses and midwives to regional hospitals in this state.
We put out the call for an additional 500 paramedics for rural and regional towns, and I want to tell the conference today that we’re halfway through meeting that goal.
Every person in the state deserves access to life-saving healthcare wherever they live.
Delegates under the last government, the number of people completing apprenticeships or traineeships had halved in New South Wales.
There’s no doubt we were failing young people and we were losing the next generation of skilled workers, particularly in regional communities.
And something needed to change.
So with the support of the union movement – and in particular the tireless, sometimes aggressive advocacy of the Secretary of the USU Graeme Kelly – I can report that we have made the biggest new state investment in apprenticeships in New South Wales history.
And that is 1,300 new apprenticeships across every local council in the state, particularly in regional New South Wales where it can make a massive difference.
Where you can have older employees take stock and grab the hand of a young apprentice and show them the ropes.
Give them an idea of training, show them how to work with a team and crucially, say to a young person the next generation in that town, that there is a future for you here in Orange or Bathurst or Lithgow or Kiama.
That’s what Labor is doing with its apprenticeships program. It’s making a difference well over and above the money that we’re tipping into this important program.
We believe it’s time for the government to address the skills shortage for Australian workers and I know that’s of particular interest to this conference.
60% of these positions are in rural and regional areas.
70% are under the age of 25 and I can report to conference that more than 1 in 10 are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders.
Delegates, in policing a few years ago we made what we thought was an obvious and overdue decision.
And that was to start paying people when they completed their training at the Goulburn police academy.
One, because you can’t ask people to move away from their homes for four months and expect them to do it for free – particularly if they’re older, in the community and have children, maybe they have an experienced profession prior to entering the police force.
And two, because we wanted to encourage the widest possible range of people into this important profession.
If we want essential workers we have to pay them.
And last December, when I attended the attestation – the graduation with the Minister for Police Yasmin Catley – we had 314 new officers.
It was the biggest class to march out of the Goulburn Academy in 13 years.
Friends, one of the great things about the Labor Party is that we run in every seat.
We fight for your vote, we won’t blackmail you to get your vote.
We will never do what the National Party did or does when they excluded Labor seats from bushfire recovery grants – the most obvious thing to do for a community in need.
It was a shameful thing to do.
And it wasn’t just our contention that this had happened, because I know in political parties, oftentimes we throw political barbs at one another.
Don’t take it from me – the Auditor General of New South Wales made exactly the same judgment.
The truth is when communities need help, when they’re under threat from bushfires or floods, natural disasters, emergency situations, they need to know that we’ve got their back.
And today, I can announce with the Minister for Emergency Services Jihad Dib, that we are providing an additional $34 million to upgrade bushfire and emergency stations in regional New South Wales.
Delegates that includes six new combined fire control and emergency operation centres and 18 new rural fire stations in the bush, where they’re needed before the emergency hits.
Delegates, we govern for every community, whoever they vote for.
The National Party approach will never be the Labor approach.
Because we think the public interest is just too important, particularly when there is a disaster, particularly when you need to educate kids, particularly when you need to provide jobs to the next generation.
As we build 100 new public preschools across the state 49 of them will be in regional or rural New South Wales – because that’s where the need is, in regional and rural New South Wales.
In Deniliquin, Leeton, Bowraville, Warialda, Bourke, Leeton, Parkes, Menindee – I know I said Leeton twice – Taree, Albury, Cessnock.
As we reverse the Liberal Party’s obsession with privatisation you know they sold $90 million worth of assets owned by you, the people of the state – we have brought Junee prison back into public hands.
And delegates I know that you would be proud of this, under the Minister for Housing Rose Jackson, we continue the biggest new investment in public and social housing in the history of New South Wales.
We’ve built 791 of them regional towns while fixing up – this is in regional New South Wales – 7,500 more social housing in our community, in regional New South Wales, neglected under the Coalition but not under Labor.
Delegates, that’s the difference a Labor government can make.
A New South Wales Labor government that’s building homes, building assets and investing in the workers that make the state great, that provide essential public services for every Australian regardless of where you live, regardless of who you vote for.
Thank you for making the effort to be here.
To celebrate the Labor Party in this state and to commit anew for the challenges ahead.
Thank you for your ideas, for your energy, for your activism, sometimes for your dissent.
Thank you for believing in the Labor Party in regional New South Wales when it’s not always easy to do so.
Thank you for flying the flag for our over 100 year party.
You are the heart and soul of New South Wales Labor and we can’t thank you enough.
Thank you.
