NSW election results 2023 as it happened: Chris Minns to form majority Labor government; Matt Kean won’t run for Liberal leadership

Good evening and thank you for reading our live coverage of the NSW election. If you are just catching up, here are the main headlines from today:

• NSW Labor has won majority government after 12 years in opposition, securing 47 seats with a big swing and taking 10 seats from the Coalition.
• Premier elect Chris Minns said the victory was a “humbling experience”, and said he would get to work straight away, meeting with his future cabinet today.
• Dominic Perrottet has stepped down as Liberal leader, and deputy Matt Kean withdrew from the race to replace him. Four leading candidates for Coalition leadership are Anthony Roberts, Alister Henskens, Mark Speakman and James Griffin.
• The election results means Labor governments are in power in all the mainland states as well as federally, and the thumping size of the win signals danger for federal Coalition leader Peter Dutton in an upcoming byelection.
• Nine seats remain too close to call: Goulburn, Holsworthy, Kiama, Miranda, Oatley, Pittwater, Willoughby, Winston Hills and Wollondilly. The vote count continues on Monday morning.

Premier-elect Chris Minns savours the atmosphere at Labor’s election event on Saturday night.Credit: Janie Barrett

Ashen-faced and humbled, members of the Liberal Party’s moderate faction shuffled into Honkas bar and restaurant in Potts Point on Sunday afternoon for a healing session over canapes and pay-your-own-way drinks.

Andrew Constance, Stuart Ayres and Marise Payne at the Liberals’ post-election event.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

Even for those who had been holding out hope of forming a minority government, and there were a few, Saturday night’s result was not a shock. “There were no baseball bats,” said outgoing minister Natalie Ward. “It was just a sense of apathy, it’s time, it’s 12 years.”

Michael Koziol reports from the Liberals’ post-election catch-up.

For budding Antony Greens out there, the Herald’s results page makes fascinating reading. You can arrange the results alphabetically, by party or by seat type. The data reveals that, while the swing to Labor is strong statewide, strong local candidates bucked the trend in many seats.

For those wishing to explore the count at the most granular level, the NSW Electoral Commission publishes individual booth-by-booth vote results for each electorate, for both the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. The results can be browsed here.

The Herald has also curated some of the most illuminating news reportage from the campaign trail and its aftermath in one place here.

A self-described “classical Liberal”, Matt Kean copped flack from left and right during vigorous spells as treasurer and minister for the environment.

By withdrawing from the Liberal leadership race, the party’s deputy leader vacates the field to at least four candidates who present a mix of factional support.

While speculation is rife in the party that Kean will consider a switch to federal politics, he’s said today that family comes first and, politically, he’s concentrating on representing his Hornsby electorate.

Matt Kean at his home in Pennant Hills with partner Wendy Quinn, their son Tom 3, and her daughters Jasmine 10, and Monique 8.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

A polarising figure within the Liberals, Kean has been unafraid to criticise the federal party over its lack of action on climate change and other policies, as well as the right-wing factions of the state party.

He earned the ire of the right-wing “Sky after-dark” commentators, who call him “Green Kean” and blame him for all the Liberals’ woes in NSW. But conservationists have also criticised his environmental credentials.

Here is Matt Wade’s interview Kean from the election campaign trail.

Chris Minns has indicated that he will keep the same front bench he took to the election. Meet the senior Labor personalities likely to make up the team, Christopher Harris reports.

Chris Minns on his campaign bus with Labor colleagues (from left) Courtney Houssos, Daniel Mookhey, John Graham, Penny Sharpe, Jo Hayden, and deputy leader Prue Car last Sunday.Credit: Dylan Coker

Born and raised in Western Sydney, Prue Car is deputy premier-elect and soon-to-be education minister. Daniel Mookhey is set to be the next treasurer, John Graham is expected to be Minister for Roads as well as the Arts. Jo Haylen is set to be the state’s next Transport Minister, Penny Sharpe is expected to be the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Ryan Park is set to be health minister, and Paul Scully is expected to take over the planning and police portfolios.

Read more about them all here.

Big building projects don’t win votes - at least, not when cost of living pressures are dominating discussion at election time. That is the verdict of senior Liberals who watched the key seat of Parramatta slip from the party’s grasp, Matt O’Sullivan reports.

Former NSW transport minister Andrew Constance, who oversaw a host of mega projects, said cost-of-living pressures were by far the biggest issue on voters’ minds. Former premier Mike Baird said Parramatta had become the Paris of western Sydney, given the infrastructure projects that were transforming the city.

Labor repeatedly targeted the cost of tolls during the election campaign, and Constance said motorway charges flowed through into voters’ concerns about cost of living despite a toll subsidy scheme for frequent users.

With Matt Kean declaring he won’t run, there are four contenders in the frame for the job of state opposition leader, Lucy Cormack reports.

Right-wing frontbencher Anthony Roberts, former sports minister Alister Henskens, caretaker Attorney-General Mark Speakman, and former environment minister James Griffin are in the mix following Perrottet’s decision to stand aside.

Anthony Roberts, Alister Henskens, Mark Speakman and James Griffin.Credit: Rhett Wyman, Cole Bennets, Oscar Colman

Roberts said he was considering throwing his hat in the ring, Griffin said he had spoken to colleagues but declined to elaborate, while Henskens and Speakman did not comment.

Read more here.

Former Treasurer Matt Kean will not seek to become Liberal leader, or a member of the opposition’s leadership team, saying he wants to spend more time with his family.

“I have decided not to throw my hat in the ring for the NSW Liberal leadership,” Kean said in a statement this afternoon.

Matt Kean won’t contest the Liberal leadership.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

“I have a young family and I would love to spend a little more time with them. The election result will enable me to do that.

“Tommy recently turned three and now is the time for me to hang out and be a dad, while also continuing to serve my wonderful Hornsby constituents and the Liberal Party, though not as leader and not as part of the leadership team.

“I want to thank Dominic Perrottet for his service to the people of NSW and thank my community for their ongoing support. I will continue to work hard for Hornsby every single day.”

There are still nine seats too close to call - Goulburn, Holsworthy, Kiama, Miranda, Oatley, Pittwater, Willoughby, Winston Hills and Wollondilly. Candidates have been left biting their nails until the count begins again on Monday morning, with just over half of the state’s votes yet to be tallied.

Among those in limbo is the independent candidate for Willoughby Larissa Penn, who expressed frustration with the state’s optional preferential voting system. But the wait will be over soon, writes Megan Gorrey.

If anyone was expecting overt displays of euphoria from Labor’s Premier-elect Chris Minns on Sunday morning, they would have been disappointed, writes Deborah Snow.

Instead, at his first full media conference after Saturday night’s resounding victory, Minns remained his trademark even-tempered self, venturing to say that the positive results for Labor in some seats were “a surprise but in many ways a pleasant surprise”. It was the closest he got to a moment of self-congratulation.

Yet the win is a huge one, and so is the task ahead. Read more here.

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns at his first press conference as premier-elect on Sunday.Credit: Edwina Pickles