Incoming NSW premier Chris Minns has vowed to hire more nurses, create more teaching positions and to jack up public sector pay and working conditions in his first week in office, as the state’s most powerful union body prepares for fresh wage talks.

Within hours of Labor claiming victory over the NSW Coalition after 12 years in power, Unions NSW called the political change an opportunity “to restart how we do industrial relations and deliver public services” in the state as Labor prepares to scrap a public-sector wage cap of 3 per cent. The move is likely to embolden public sector workers in Victoria, where the Andrews Labor government has a 1.5 per cent wage cap.