In his first speech to parliament, Ryan Park thanked - among other people - his barista for supplying him with a cappuccino each morning.
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Twelve years later his order has changed to piccolos, which he says is to account for the number of cups of coffee he now drinks a day. But when he can, the Keira MP still starts his day at the same East Corrimal cafe.
Even as he's been criss-crossing the state with Labor leader Chris Minns to make health announcements as part of the election campaign, Mr Park has popped his head in to Franks n Beans for a coffee and a chat most days.
"I come here most mornings, and sometimes someone will want to talk about a political issue, but most of time it's just about saying hello, having a cup of coffee and reading the paper," he said.
"I learn directly from the community about the sort of things they're facing, anything from personal circumstances, issues with government departments, issues with the hospital or a local traffic issue.
"I can't solve every problem, but people can always come up and talk to me."
A week from election day, his cafe conversations range from his seat's changed electoral boundaries - which has shifted his own house into his colleague Paul Scully's patch - to the performance of his beloved footy team.
When a young Dragons fan comes in, she and Mr Park compare screenshots of the NRL leaderboard, which shows them in a rare third place after their win against the Titans.
"If only finals were in April," he laments, adding that there's not too many die-hard fans of the team left after their performance in the past couple of years.
Luckily for the Dragons, the sports mad politician is both loyal to his home town and no stranger to rooting for the underdog.
Mr Park grew up in 1970s working-class Dapto, went to Lakelands Public School and then Dapto High - where he became school captain.
Passionate about the public system that gave he and his two older sisters a good education, he studied teaching at UOW and became a PE teacher at Lake Illawarra High School.
After a couple of years working in schools, he took a job in the office of then Labor MP David Campbell, eventually becoming his chief of staff, and then later taking a senior bureaucratic role in the transport department, which Mr Campbell headed up.
Then, towards the end of the last NSW Labor government, in 2010, Mr Campbell resigned and Mr Park was pre-selected to be his replacement as Labor's candidate for Keira in the next election.
In 2011, he was one of only 20 Labor MPs elected to NSW Parliament after the party suffered one of the biggest swings in electoral history and, even in the rusted-on northern suburbs of Wollongong the party's margin was reduced to around 2 per cent.
Since then, for his entire career as an MP, Mr Park has been in opposition.
His time in parliament has also been one of NSW Labor's longest periods out of power, but on March 25 it's facing its best chance at being able to form government since that crushing loss.
Polls are tight though, and - despite being all but guaranteed to win in his own safe Labor seat which now has a margin of around 18 per cent - Mr Park says the party is still the underdog.
"Campaigns are always tough, and this one is no different," he said, adding that all eyes will be on Heathcote, directly to the north of his electorate.
"We're the underdogs, and we've got to win a very large number of seats - but I think Chris [Minns] has put the party in a strong position."
He said Labor's credibility was solidified during the height of the pandemic, when Mr Minns and Mr Park agreed to back the government's approach as long as it followed the advice from health experts.
"We weren't just about pulling the other team down, and we are actually about acknowledging when something works well," he said.
"He's put our team in a really good position."
While he backs the party leader, Mr Park has, at least twice, considered running for the job himself.
In May 2021, he said he was "humbled by all the encouragement" he received when considering a tilt at the leadership after Jodi McKay resigned, but said he decided not to contest "for the good of the party".
His name was also floated as a leadership contender in 2018, when Luke Foley resigned amid allegations of misconduct, but, in a teary press conference, Mr Park ruled himself out of the running citing the impact it would have on his family.
"This role would require me to do a significant amount of travel, a significant amount of time away from home, and with a four-year-old and a nine-year-old who still want their dad around, now is simply not the time for me," Mr Park said.
His sons Preston and Oliver are now 12 and eight, and Mr Park says they're far more interested in mountain bike riding and playing sport than paying attention to whatever their dad is up to.
However, he says politics remains tough on families, including his boys and wife Kara, and even as opposition health spokesperson he has spent significant time away.
If Mr Park becomes minister, which Mr Minns has confirmed he will if the party can form government, he will have the mammoth task of overseeing a system, which - according to health data and the accounts of many workers - needs a lot of work.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, there are huge staff shortages at hospitals and in primary health, stretched resources and more people, who are sicker than usual, needing treatment.
Emergency room waiting times have hit record levels in recent months, which has left ambulances waiting hours outside the ED, and health workers are leaving - or threatening to leave - their professions in droves.
Local nurses and doctors say they have never seen the system this bad.
Despite the enormity of the task facing whoever becomes the next health minister, Mr Park won't say he's daunted.
"I know it's a massive challenge, but if we climb this mountain and we get there then what a privilege it is to have the ability to influence arguably one of the most important areas in public policy," he said.
"There's only been 43 health ministers in NSW history, so if I get that privilege, I will be looking it not as daunting, but an opportunity.
"Healthcare workers who have been in the system for decades are telling me they've not seen it like this, but we can't say that this is too hard, we have to say 'how can we do things better?'"
His first plan if he's made health minister, which he outlined to a group of nurses in Shellharbour last week, will be to overhaul staffing.
Labor had promised to dump the current system, which it developed when last in power, where wards are staffed according to "nursing hours per patient day" in favour of mandated shift-by-shift safe staffing levels.
The party will also remove the public sector wages cap, imposed by the Coalition, to allow unions to negotiate with the government over pay instead of receiving a set, capped wage increase.
Mr Park hopes the prospect of a wage increase and guaranteed staffing levels will be enough to stem the departure of nurses and health workers, and may also encourage some of those who have left to return.
He says his first job as health minister will be "to become obsessed" with how hospitals are staffed, and hopes to see change within "months, not years."
"One of my weaknesses is that I'm an incredibly impatient person, and I have to realise that change won't just happen overnight, but I also have to have a real sense of urgency about this because I am concerned - for patients and also for health workers."
As Labor's plan is implemented, he wants to be involved, in great detail, in how various health districts and hospitals are performing when it comes to finding and keeping staff.
"I want to look at each LHD, how they're going for wait time, how they're going for ramping, what is their staff vacancy rates, what are their challenges," he said.
"If they've advertised for a registered nurse 20 times and got no one, then stop doing that and do something else. It sounds like management speak, but I want an almost dashboard that I can say this is where the red flags are and what are we doing. We have to see progress."
Mr Park believes his time in opposition will serve him well in making progress, as he's more used to dealing with everyday people than bureaucrats.
"It has helped me in a way, because I don't have any bureaucracy filtering the direct view that I get from the coalface," he said.
"This will allow me to have really robust conversations with health, and push back where I feel it's important."
He'll also draw on his personal experiences.
"I'm worried about my own health system and my own community - about our own hospitals," he said.
"This is the community I've been in all my life and when I see the challenge out hospitals are under, it's more than a headline.
"It's my neighbours who spent a long time waiting in the ED, it's family members who are waiting for elective surgery."
One upon a time, it was also him in hospital. As a small child, Mr Park had nephrotic syndrome - a kidney disorder that meant he spent a lot of time in hospital between the ages of two and five.
While he doesn't remember too much of this time, it has shaped his approach to healthcare, he says, as he knows what it put his parents and sisters through.
"It was very challenging for all of them to have a small child in the children's' hopsital for long period of time - I can't imagine what it would be like," he said.
"I've realised that health isn't just about the patient - it's about how we communicate with parents, family members, carers beyond the person in the bed. These people need to be brought into the journey, which I think sometimes we don't do as well as we could."
As the election gets closer, he's aware his ambitions to reform health could end up out of Labor's grasp for another four years. He laughs nervously at the thought.
"If we don't win, I get to be the member for Keira," he says.
"There is no greater privilege than to have people put your name on top as the person they want to represent them in the oldest parliament in the country.
"I love the job, and I'm still giving the same as I did in that very first week."
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Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
