2023 New South Wales state election

2023 New South Wales state election
← 2019 25 March 2023 2027 →
All 93 seats in the Legislative Assembly
and 21 (of the 42) seats in the Legislative Council
47 Assembly seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Registered5,521,688
Turnout4,861,148 (88.04%)
(Decrease2.96 pp)
  First party Second party Third party
 
Fundraising function for Mr Edmond Atalla MP, State Member for Member for Mount Druitt, with then NSW Opposition Leader, Mr Chris Minns MP (cropped).jpg
CEBIT Australia - Day 2, The Hon Dominic Perrottet MP (1) (cropped) v2 b.jpg
Leader Chris Minns Dominic Perrottet No leader
Party Labor Liberal/National Coalition Greens
Leader since 4 June 2021 5 October 2021 N/A
Leader's seat Kogarah Epping N/A
Last election 36 seats, 33.31% 48 seats, 41.58% 3 seats, 9.57%
Seats before 36[a] 45[b] 3
Seats won 45 36 3
Seat change Increase 9 Decrease 12 Steady
First-preference vote 1,738,081 1,663,215 455,960
Percentage 36.97% 35.37% 9.70%
Swing Increase 3.66 Decrease 6.21 Increase 0.13
TPP 54.26% 45.74%
TPP swing Increase 6.29 Decrease 6.29
Premier before election

Dominic Perrottet
Liberal

Subsequent Premier

Chris Minns
Labor

The 2023 New South Wales state election was held on 25 March 2023 to elect the 58th Parliament of New South Wales, including all 93 seats in the Legislative Assembly and 21 of the 42 seats in the Legislative Council. The election was conducted by the New South Wales Electoral Commission (NSWEC).

The incumbent minority Liberal/National Coalition government, led by Premier Dominic Perrottet, sought to win a fourth successive four-year term in office, but was defeated by the opposition Labor Party, led by Opposition Leader Chris Minns. The Greens, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, other minor parties and several independents also contested the election.

The outcome resulted in the first Labor government in the state in 12 years, ending the longest Coalition government in New South Wales history.[1]

It was also the first time since 1995 that Labor had won a New South Wales state election from opposition.[2]

The election also marked the second time in history that the Australian Labor Party gained control of the entirety of Mainland Australia at the federal and state levels simultaneously (leaving Tasmania as the only state with a Liberal government), a feat that had last been achieved in 2007.[3][4]

Though the Coalition was defeated, Labor were unable to win enough seats to govern in a majority, resulting in a hung parliament. Labor however was able to govern with the support of independent MPs Alex Greenwich, Greg Piper, and Joe McGirr, who guaranteed Labor confidence and supply.[5] Piper also made an agreement with Labor to become the Speaker of the Lower House, having previously served as a deputy speaker.[6]

New South Wales has compulsory voting, with optional preferential, instant runoff voting in single-member seats for the lower house, and single transferable voting with optional preferential above-the-line voting in the proportionally represented upper house.

The online voting system iVote was not used in this election. The NSW government suspended iVote after the 2021 NSW local council elections saw five wards impacted by access outages, with three significant enough that analysis suggested as high as a 60% chance the wrong candidate had been elected, after which the NSW Supreme Court ordered those elections voided and re-run.[7]


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  1. ^ McGowan, Michael; Rose, Tamsin (25 March 2023). "'Back and ready': Chris Minns leads Labor to power after 12 years in opposition at historic 2023 NSW election". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  2. ^ Rabe, Tom (25 March 2023). "'NSW has voted for change': NSW Labor returns from the wilderness". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
  3. ^ Slade, Lucy (25 March 2023). "Mainland Australia turns red after NSW Labor victory". 9News. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
  4. ^ Bongiorno, Frank (27 March 2023). "Australia is now almost entirely held by Labor – but that doesn't necessarily make life easier for leaders". The Conversation. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
  5. ^ Wade, Matt; Cormack, Lucy (27 March 2023). "Majority government in the balance as independents promise Labor supply". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  6. ^ "Order, Order, Lake Mac MP Greg Piper new Lower House speaker". 4 April 2023.
  7. ^ "iVote failure election re-runs in Kempsey, Singleton, Shellharbour to be held July 30 despite efforts to postpone". ABC News. 8 June 2022. Retrieved 23 February 2023.