New South Wales premier-elect Chris Minns has described Labor’s victory as a “humbling experience”, insisting the party’s success after 12 years in the political wilderness was the result of having an “ear to the ground” on cost-of-living pressures in Australia’s largest state.
In his first media conference since Labor’s election victory on Saturday night, the 43-year-old incoming NSW premier admitted the title would take getting used to, saying “today looks different to yesterday”.
But Minns, who became only the third Labor leader to win from opposition in NSW on Saturday night, insisted he would go to work immediately, revealing he will meet with his senior shadow cabinet members on Sunday afternoon.
The loss immediately set off recriminations within the Coalition, and will make for an intriguing postmortem not only over who will replace Dominic Perrottet as leader but also the party’s future direction in a state where the moderate faction has generally held the most sway.
Labor was criticised during the campaign for running a small-target campaign that focused heavily on a few key pillars of ending privatisation, removing a public sector wages cap and investing in the health and education workforce.
Asked on Sunday if he had been vindicated by that approach, Minns said Labor had won by campaigning on “specific, credible and common sense” policies to deal with immediate issues associated with living costs, stagnant wages and issues in the state’s health, education and transport sectors.
“People in this state wanted answers and solutions to the problems facing them right now,” he said.
Labor’s victory in the state immediately prompted congratulations from senior Labor figures including former prime minister Julia Gillard, who said it was “an exciting, fresh start for the state”.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, also welcomed the victory while noting he had worked with outgoing premier Perrottet on a range of policies.
“New South Wales has voted for a government that’ll do what good Labor governments do – get things done, and deliver good and publicly owned services. I know that’s what Chris Minns and his government will do,” he said.
“And Victoria will be very happy to work with you.”
While Minns has been consistently complimentary of Perrottet, in a campaign notable for both leaders’ refusal to make personal attacks on one another, Labor’s approach stood in contrast to the Coalition’s push for more values-based reforms such as gambling reform.
“Voters were looking for practical solutions to the problems facing them right in front of their eyes,” he said. “Labor had their ear to the ground.
“An opposition doesn’t have a lot of resources, it doesn’t have a massive bureaucracy, we don’t have tonnes of staff. So myself and my senior ministers were very close to the ground speaking directly to nurses and teachers, speaking directly to community organisations.
“There was never a buffer between us and the people of this state and I think that we created our policies based on the here and now and what we were hearing from the community.”
Minns said he wanted to maintain that in government, saying the party’s success was a result of being “very close to ordinary people, ordinary families [and] I don’t want to lose that now that we’ve won government”.
Coalition fallout
Labor’s victory means the party is now in power in every state and territory on mainland Australia, with Tasmania the last remaining conservative-ruled government in the country.
On Saturday night the former federal Nationals leader and deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce was quick to place blame for the loss on treasurer and moderate-faction leader Matt Kean, despite the Coalition losing seats both in its north Sydney heartland, the more conservative western suburbs and in regional seats like Monaro.
Joyce said Kean’s progressive stance on issues such as climate change “hurt us” in the election, accusing him of having a “Green inflection”.
“People are saying I just don’t agree with what Matt Kean says,” he said.
“Amongst our supporters, amongst our heart and soul people. I don’t what that’s all about. You’re putting at threat our industries, you’re cuddling up to – you’re more worried about the teals. There’s a Green inflection to your policies.”
But the federal Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, a moderate, warned his party against chasing the “margins” and moving to the right.
“One of the most important lessons here is that we have to be a party that doesn’t go to the margins and that doesn’t seek to inject division into the mainstream,” he said.
“The Liberal party has held on to the bulk of its metro seats, on the north shore, in the eastern suburbs, parts of the inner west. These are the areas that were wiped out in the last federal election and I think that’s an important distinction.”
Leadership frontrunners include Kean, and sports minister Alister Henskens, from the right faction, who on Saturday said he was focused on the count first.
“There are a whole lot of seats that are still undecided, I’m much more interested in scrutineering … than talking about leadership,” he told Sky News.
Minns said on Sunday that his cabinet would “largely” remain the same as the one taken to the election, but he would be “having those conversations” in the coming days.
While Minns’s senior leadership team is locked in, including the portfolios of health, education, transport, environment and treasurer, it’s understood the victory of some candidates, such as former Iemma government minister Steve Whan in Monaro, could prompt a reshuffle.
