SYDNEY: The Australian Labor PartyLabor Party in New South Wales claimed power in an election on Saturday, with voters backing the centre-left party's pledges on anti-privatisation and cost of living relief.
Labor is on track to take the 47 seats needed to form a majority government, after three terms in opposition, but the vote on Sunday showed that the election in Australia's most populous state had been touted as a tight race between the incumbent Liberal-National Coalition and Labor.
The win marks the endorsement of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who joined his state counterpart Chris Minns in Sydney on the polling day.
Albanese said on Saturday that he and the whole NSW Labor team had a huge congratulations on ChrisMinnsMP and the whole NSW Labor team on your election victory.
Labor's win in New South Wales means that the party now governs at state and federal level across Australia's mainland, leaving island state Tasmania as the conservative outlier.
After 12 years in opposition, the people of New South Wales have voted for a fresh start, Minns told supporters in Sydney late on Saturday.
The people of New South Wales voted to put in place a government that would put people at the heart of decision-making. Labor's campaign in the state included a pledge to rule out further privatization of state assets, and a promise to boost public sector wages, amid cost-of-living concerns.
Stubborn inflation has posed a challenge for the Reserve Bank of Australia, which lifted its cash rate to its highest level in more than a decade.
According to Minns, Labor has commonsense initiatives that would help bring down the cost of living in the state. His government, once sworn in, would prepare laws to protect Sydney Water from a future sell-off, he said.
Outgoing premier Dominic Perrottet, a social conservative Catholic and former state treasurer, was elected premier in 2021 after his predecessor resigned after a corruption watchdog probe into whether she was involved in conduct that constituted or involved a breach of public trust Albanese, in the lead up to the polling day, urging voters in his home state to back Labor, who said the coalition government was in shambles due to infighting.