The man who would be premier of NSW says his party has united around him, after 12 years in the wilderness left many of its stalwarts "sick of losing".
Chris Minns unanimously won Labor's leadership ballot in 2021, conceding it would "very difficult" to get his team to a competitive place before the next election.
But fast-forward 18 months and NSW is barrelling towards an election with consecutive polls showing the ALP scampering ahead of the Liberal-National coalition.
Party insiders say left and right disunity and a culture of leaking has largely been cast aside, replaced by a focus on Mr Minns and victory.
"There was a lot of good will from the party, my colleagues," according to the opposition leader himself.
"Ninety nine point nine per cent of them were sick of losing.
"Everybody put whatever personal issues they were dealing with to one side and got behind the team."
A number had become exhausted with the cycle of yelling from the sidelines and issuing media releases, Mr Minns said.
"(In opposition) you're not a real genuine participant in the affairs of the state.
"We want to be successful. The party really wanted to get serious."
The Kogarah MP said his strides towards success have been helped along by consistent messaging on creating a society with economic opportunity for all and this, in turn, bound the party together.
"It's about being a political party to ensure it does not matter what your parents did for a living, the sky's the limit in Australia," he said.
"If we focus on that and build that up as the major issue in the election and have people identify that with Labor, I reckon we'll be successful."
If Labor can form government after March 25, Mr Minns said he would prioritise fixing the state's schools system in his first term.
"We have to rebuild education," he said.
"I don't think it can be done immediately, it's going to take time.
"But if we don't get the settings right in relation to education, then everything else that you build, in terms of skills and opportunity and economic growth just fall down."
Australia has fallen from a top-10 global ranking for reading, maths and science in 2006 to now ranking 17th in reading, 30th in maths and 16th in science, according to the OECD's international student assessment program.
Labor has committed to converting 10,000 temporary teaching roles to permanent jobs and will scrap a cap on public service wages and renegotiate teaching pay deals.
The coalition has meanwhile pledged to make 10,000 temporary administrative and teaching roles permanent ones and will deliver an additional 3700 teachers through its $125 million supply strategy.
The government has also promised to cut the training period for university graduates wanting to become a teacher from two years to one.
Mr Minns' father was a public school teacher and principal, a job he and his peers were drawn to as a vocation.
"No one goes into it to make a tonne of money, to be a chalky," he said. "But there's no substitute for it."
The Kogarah electorate, which has been held by Labor for more than five decades, was first won by Mr Minns in 2015 with a 5.4 per cent margin.
But a redistribution has left it the most marginal in the state at 0.1 per cent.
"The demographics of the seat are difficult," he said.
"It's solidly middle class and probably votes the way a lot of swinging communities do.
"At various points, it's been right on the dial - Labor's got a long heritage there and a lot of branches and a good support network."
Mr Minns has always lived in the electorate, apart from a stint in the US to completed a masters in public policy at Princeton University.
His three children, two in high school and one in primary, now attend his old schools.
