Present planning minister will add to collection of ministries
Continuing the reshuffle of ministerial posts in New South Wales, the nation’s most populous state will have a new transport minister if the form of present planning minister Rob Stokes.
The move was flagged by new NSW premier Dominic Perrottet.
After Stokes’s challenge for the party leadership only yesterday in a ballot at NSW Parliament House – where he was defeated with 39-5 votes – Perrottet indicated his suitability for the job given his 10 years of ministerial experience.
“When I called him this morning, he was very happy to take it on and I think balancing both planning, transport, and infrastructure makes perfect sense,” Perrottet told reporters.
According to independent national newswire AAP, he says the largest component of infrastructure remained in transport, a portfolio soon to be available after minister Andrew Constance announced he was entering federal politics instead.
“So I think he [Stokes] will play a key role and is a perfect person for the job,” Perrottet said.
What Stokes loses in freight transport industry experience, the industry will hope, as Perrottet promised, he will make up with strong ministerial experience which should come with an insight into infrastructure through the planning portfolio.
Since being parliamentary sectretary for renewable energy for nearly three years to 2015, he has since held the ministries of: environment; Central Coast; heritage; planning, as assitant minister and minister; education; planning and public spaces.
Against that, his first three posts lasted less than a year and the others less than three years, though at growing spans.
Read how regional transport minister Paul Toole bacamce deputy premier, here
Earlier, regional transport minister Paul Toole was sworn in as NSW deputy premier following Barilaro’s resignation on Monday amidst the fallout of former premier Gladys Brejiklian’s resignation.
Toole pledged to restore “business as usual” in the state’s regions after being emphatically elected as the new Nationals leader, AAP reported.
“I want to make sure we get back to work and it’s business as usual because the people of this state have been doing it tough now for a number of years,” Toole said.
“What’s important here is that we actually get on with the job.”