Speech -Address to NSW Labor Conference 2026-Premier Chris Minns
OFFICIAL Media Release/Speech Posted Saturday, 4 July 2026
Delegates, thank you for having me on the lands of the Gadigal people, thank you to their elders,
their children, and for the gracious way they welcome us to these lands with humility and warmth.
Thank you Prue for that generous introduction. You’ve been an amazing Deputy Premier, are one hell
of an Education Minister. You’re responsible for the largest investment in public education ever, and
you’ve done it all while beating cancer twice.
We’re so happy she’s back on her feet. We missed her. We need her.
Five years ago, this conference welcomed Prue and me as Opposition Leader and Deputy leader for
the very first time.
Things were vastly different; we were far from Government and facing a surging Coalition mid-way
through their third term in office.
They were far ahead in the polls and on their way to securing their fourth election win.
To be honest, our prospects were dim.
While I couldn’t find a journalist or pollster who thought we had a chance, I could not find a Labor
Party member who thought we’d lose.
Branch President’s from Balmain to Tamworth never had a doubt. They’d say, “forget the polls, it’s
an absolute a sure thing”.
Of course, I knew deep down these were same people had predicted a win at the last three elections
too, and probably blew a far bit on the betting markets.
But I can’t begin to tell you how much that self-confidence encouraged us, and gave me and my
colleagues the enthusiasm to drive on.
To win that election and assign the Liberals and Nationals to the dust bin of history in Australia’s
largest state.
We are, as a Party, optimistic and untiring, from the nation’s parliaments, to workplaces, polling
booths or the Christmas dinner table, we fight our corner and never give up.
It’s also true that at times of unrest, at times of uncertainty and political upheaval across our
country and the world, with pressure on families and a rise in divisive political leaders who copy their
politics from demagogues across the sea.
The New South Wales Labor Party and this conference stands as a pillar for millions of people
committed to the ideas of democracy, freedom, fairness and hope.
So I want to take this opportunity to say unequivocally, we on this stage pay tribute to you, the
Members of the oldest and most successful political Party in Australia’s largest state.
Now we’re going to need to draw on all your strength and optimism in the months and years ahead.
As you’ve been with us when we formed Government in March of 2023.
Back then, our economy, budget and essential services were in incredibly rough shape.
We inherited an economy smashing families, with $90 billion of privatised public assets, most of
those assets were monopolies sold off in fire sales, and a crisis in our schools and hospitals.
The previous Government, for all their claims of fiscal responsibility, handed over the largest debt
one Government has given to another in the history of New South Wales.
And It’s not as if all that money was going to the people that needed it, to run our essential services.
\The wages cap, a deliberate and stated attempt to drive down wages saw an exodus in New South
Wales of front line workers, twice as many police officers left the job, teachers resigning faster than
they were retiring, and 1,100 nurses facing the sack.
So what did we do, after we inherited office in March of 2023.
Well let me tell you. In the last three and a half year we’ve paid down debt and cut the budget deficit
by over $10 billion.
All without a wages cap.
We’ve built $30 billion a year in new infrastructure, schools, hospitals, metros, roads, all without
privatisation.
For twelve years, we were told that privatisation was inevitable, it was the coming trend, it couldn’t
be stopped and whatever was sold, it was sold forever.
Well conference, not only did we save Sydney Water from sale, but this year, after eight years of a
failed privatisation, Labor brought the Northern Beaches Hospital back into public hands.
That decision followed an amazing campaign led by Danny and Elouise Massa, in memory of their
beautiful boy Joe.
They had a really simple idea, an idea shared by every single member of this conference.
That our emergency rooms should be run for people and never for profit.
So, instead of selling off assets, we’re using the dividends from the public companies you own to re-
invest back into the schools and hospitals this state needs.
We also struck fair pay deals with our workforce and their elected unions that’s meant we’ve been
able to recruit an additional, 6000 nurses, 1400 new doctors, and thanks to the mighty HSU, over a
thousand new paramedics.
Friends, we’ve gone from a corrupted schools infrastructure system burying money in Liberal
electorates to the largest and fastest school infrastructure program for Westen Sydney in
Australia’s history.
$4 billion in just 4 years.
I can report to you that we’ve just had the largest graduating class at the Goulburn Police Academy
in 14 years.
In fact, recruitment inquiries are up 70% and they’ve just had to add another class to the academy to
cope with the demand.
I need to report also that even in the face of the horrifying terrorist attack on our State’s Jewish
community in December of last year, when NSW Police bravely confronted terrorists to save
innocent lives and in the process showed uncommon heroism.
Even in the face of that we saw the numbers of applications for NSW Police force go up, not down.
Here I want to specifically pay tribute to the Jewish community of New South Wales, who are still
mourning the dead of Bondi, and yet somehow have found the strength and the grace to bind this
city, this state and this country together.
I think we can say that whatever is thrown at us, this state is full of wonderful people who love this
country, who stand by their neighbours, who will risk their lives for the safety of complete strangers,
and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
Delegates, consider what NSW Labor has been able to achieve in just three years.
Youth crime is down in the regions.
10,000 fewer people are waiting too long for elective surgery in New South Wales hospitals.
Teacher vacancies have been cut by 70%.
And after years of decline, NSW students are once again ranked first across multiple years in
writing, reading, grammar and in numeracy.
Delegates, it’s real progress and a sea change from where we were.
But we’re not all here today to do a victory lap.
The truth is, the economy is nowhere near where we need it to be for working families, so today I
want to speak about the next chapter in our plan to invest in workers, to grow the economy, and to
build the kind of industry that makes New South Wales strong.
And that begins with manufacturing.
The former Liberal leader of our state and Premier Gladys Berejiklian once said that New South
Wales is no good at building trains, that’s why we have to buy them from overseas.
I think you’d all agree that’s running up the white flag on Australian know-how and showing a
stunning lack of ambition about what’s possible in our economy.
Let me say clearly, it’s also not true.
For over one hundred years, the best trains in the world were proudly made by union workers right
here in New South Wales.
Down the road are the old Eveleigh railworks, which for a time were the biggest and most
technologically advanced railworks in the Southern Hemisphere.
Then it moved to Cardiff, then to Broadmeadow, and then into Western Sydney too.
For generations, highly skilled Australian workers made our Tangaras, our red rattlers, the V Set, the
S Set.
All up until 2012, when the last train rolled off the line at Broadmeadow, after being outsourced to
China, Spain and South Korea.
Now I will never accept that we are bad at building big, necessary things in New South Wales.
As id somehow, overnight, after a hundred years of history, we forgot how to make trains in this
state.
All we needed was a government with some belief and the willpower to stand on our own two feet.
Now we’ve already hired 320 local workers in Auburn, Flemington and Cardiff, to work on the
Tangaras and give them some extra years of life.
But the truth is, to keep our trains running, we’re going to need a whole new fleet really soon.
So today I can announce that New South Wales will not be purchasing them from China or South
Korea.
We’re going to build those trains right here, in New South Wales.
That’s going to mean 780 jobs in the construction stage – and 550 good, ongoing jobs in
manufacturing.
We’ve identified two sites in Teralba and Broadmeadow and we’re going to pick one of them.
But whichever is chosen it will be based at the home of train building, the Hunter.
Delegates permit me a note of gratitude this announcement would not have happened without the
tireless advocacy of Brad Pidgeon, and the AMWU and the entire union movement who have been
fighting for jobs and opportunities for young Australians for many years.
It’s a win for those who still dream that our State and country is a place where we can build the
future.
Delegates, I’m proudly one of those dreamers, and together we will bring back new train building to
our State.
And delegates, I have to address another issue that to be frank with you has been a long, long time
coming, too long.
And while we’ve made a lot progress in the last week, we’re not there yet.
But delegates, state and federal governments must work together to save the jobs and sovereign
capabilities of the Tomago aluminum smelter.
The Australian Workers Union, the delegates at this conference, members of the Hunter Valley, our
own MPs have told us its far too important for New South Wales, and I guarantee we will do its part.
Delegates, forty years ago, those first Tangara trains were commissioned by the Wran Government.
And today, it is my great honour to welcome back Jill Wran and nine members of that government
who are here with us at the state conference. I think they’re up they’re up there on the left.
Neville famously resigned at one of these conferences but Im not going anywhere delegates, I can
promise that.
Two years ago, at the last state conference, NSW Labor announced our plan to invest in the next
generation of Australian workers.
Under the last government, you’ll know that this is true but it’s shocking when I say it, the number of
people finishing apprenticeships and traineeships in our state year halved, halved.
A member of this conference, Graeme Kelly, Secretary of the USU was insistent that if Labor were
truly to be the Party of honest work and opportunity we must fund and create new apprenticeships.
He said to us really plainly and very directly industry was struggling to do it and the Liberals and the
Nationals never would.
So with the help of the USU, on that day, we announced $250 million to hire 1,300 apprentices
across every council in New South Wales.
So I want to report back to you on that progress, I want to say today that the progress report back is
that it has been a massive success.
All the positions are full.
So that leaves me with no choice, we need to make it even bigger
Labor will expand the apprenticeship program with an extra 400 places next year.
Friends this is about ensuring that more young people can get a great start to their working life,
particularly in the regions and the bush, where most of the council positions were filled and they’re
obviously desperately needed.
I also want to point out that we’ve got two of those apprentices here today in the USU delegation.
Kye and Lucas Fogarty, twins from the Shire in Sydney, they’re following their old man into civil
construction work.
Welcome boys to the New South Wales Labor Conference.
We wish them all the best on their journey at the beginning of their professional careers and we
know what a great education a lifelong trade will give you.
Delegates, we will always look out for the most vulnerable people in our community.
Over twelve years, the last Government sold off so many public homes in NSW that by 2023, in the
middle of a housing crisis, this is an incredible statistic, but we had 15,000 less homes than when did
when the government began in 2011.
So we have made the biggest investment in social housing in New South Wales history, $5.1 billion
to build thousands of new homes.
I can report back to this conference that for the first time in decades, public housing is growing
again in New South Wales.
And delegates half of those new homes are going to victim-survivors of domestic violence.
We know there is no one single policy to end this terrible plague on our community, but the truth is,
we weren’t doing everything we could do to keep women in particular safe.
Too many dangerous offenders were getting out on bail; too many women and children were living in
fear, with nowhere to go.
And for frontline domestic violence workers, they were doing way more, with far less.
So conference, we changed our laws, the toughest domestic violence laws in Australia, making it
much harder for those accused of shocking family violence to be out of jail and back in the home.
And just last week, in our state budget, we increased the funding to frontline domestic violence
programs by fifty percent.
That money is going directly to refuges and women’s services on the frontline. Organisations doing
some of the toughest jobs in Australia, more help so they can be there for vulnerable woman and
children when they need it.
Delegates, I spoke earlier of this Party’s natural optimism and hope for the future, both for our
electoral prospects but also for our country.
But that does not mean we are a naive institution. You’re not over 130 years and naïve.
Due to the smashing electoral victory of the Federal Labor Party and Anthony Albanese at last
year’s election, we are in Government both at the State and Federal Level.
And with that responsibility comes opposition. Opposition of our plans, opposition of our policies.
This protest group out the front of the Town Hall today are not the first to try and disrupt our
democratic conference and they probably won’t be the last.
We’ve seen it all before.
I think we generally meet that Opposition as a band of happy warriors, and we always focus on the
future.
In part, that relies on plans and policies in this speech I’ve announced today.
But it also means standing up to political leaders who are determined to sap the life and vibrancy
from our wonderful community.
Leaders who are insisting that millions of people reject pride in their grandparents and their
ancestors and instead conform to One Nation’s version of an Australian Monoculture.
And it also means we stand up and defend Australian families of Islamic faith when a political leader
declares that there are “No good Muslims”.
Let me tell you about Dr Iman Hegazy, she looks after sick kids as a pediatrician at Westmead
Children’s Hospital.
Or Ahmed Al Ahmed, who disarmed a terrorist to save fellow Australians, or Olympian Tina Rahimi,
or our own Jihad Dib and Ed Husic.
Conference, it doesn’t matter what religion they are, they are great Australians.
02 7225 6000 52 Martin Place Sydney NSW 2000 GPO Box 5341 Sydney NSW 2001 9
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
If you love this country, if you respect democracy, our institutions, our history, if you take pride in our
football teams, whether they win or whether they lose in a tight penalty shoot out, you are one of us
and we won’t let anyone demonize you, especially someone trying to lead our nation.
I believe that this conference will always stand with every member of our community through
speeches and motions, including the Islamic members of our community, and words are important
right now.
But delegates, our task is bigger than that.
We must also beat back that darkness at the ballot box.
Fear is a low-calorie diet. It can’t sustain you, it can’t build a common direction, it can’t shape and
grow our community, it offers no vision, it offers no purpose.
This Party will never peddle in the politics of fear.
So friends at the next election we must fight for a democratic mandate that says there is a better,
brighter, happier tomorrow.
That better tomorrow involves jobs, economic growth, opportunities for young people, safety for the
vulnerable, building infrastructure, in short hope for the future.
Our vision, Labor’s vision, says that we are far stronger together than we are tearing each other
apart.
Very soon all of this, everything I’ve spoken about in this speech, will be on the ballot paper at the
March election.
Now I know based on my 29 years in the NSW Labor Party that you already believe we’re going to
win.
But the truth is, politics changing so quickly, we need to climb Everest just to stay where we are.
This campaign is going to throw everything at us, we’re up against many parties, not a single
Opposition. It’s going to test us like never before.
But we have the right team, and the right plan for tough times.
And I want you to know that each of the Members behind me can’t wait for that campaign, because
we have the mighty NSW Labor Party, the union movement, all of our history, all of our supporters
and voters and members by our side.
