NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says 2023 state election will be ‘very close’

The NSW premier has made a big call on next year’s state election after a torrid year for Labor and the Coalition.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says next year’s state election will be a “very close” contest between his government and Labor.

Two polls published on Saturday put the Opposition in a commanding lead just six months out from the March election.

Labor’s primary vote has risen 6.7 per cent to 40 per cent since the 2019 election, while the Coalition’s primary vote has slumped 6.6 per cent to 35 per cent, according to the Newspoll published in The Australian.

The Resolve poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald showed Labor’s primary vote had hit 43 per cent while the Coalition’s had dropped to 30 per cent.

Asked on Sunday why he thought voters had turned on the Coalition, Mr Perrottet said: “It’s not for me to commentate on the polls.”

“What I will say is that the next election will be a very close election,” he said.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has addressed the latest political polling. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Mr Perrottet spoke to journalists in his predecessor Gladys Berejiklian’s former electorate of Willoughby, as he announced a new research program into the mental health and wellbeing of NSW primary school students.

Pressed on whether he thought his party’s brand had been damaged, Mr Perrottet said it was Liberal and National values that had “taken our state to great heights”.

Mr Perrottet replaced Ms Berejiklian in October after she resigned when the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption announced it was investigating whether she had breached public trust during her secret relationship with disgraced former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire.

The NSW government has endured a torrid year marred by rolling public sector strikes that have resulted in chaos on Sydney’s rail network and anger among teachers and nurses over their wages.

Mr Perrottet was photographed with Education Minister Sarah Mitchell’s daughter Annabelle as he made an announcement about primary school wellbeing. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

The government spent nearly three months engulfed in a recent furore over the attempted ­appointment of former deputy premier John Barilaro to a plum $500,00-a-year trade posting in New York.

Mr Perrottet said on Sunday: “Those issues come up from time to time in government, I accept that, but that doesn’t take me away from what’s most important”.

Former trade minister and deputy Liberal leader Stuart Ayres left the ministry during the saga after an independent investigation found he had not been at “arm’s length” from the recruitment process.

He was later cleared of having breached the ministerial code of conduct.

But Labor hasn’t been unscathed, with the party emerging from a horror week that ended with its leader Chris Minns effectively sacking frontbencher Tania Mihailuk live on commercial radio.

Mr Minns dumped the Bankstown MP from the shadow ministry after she used parliamentary privilege to attack a Labor colleague who will be an upper house candidate.