2023 New South Wales state election

2023 New South Wales state election

25 March 2023

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%)
(2.96 pp)
  First party Second party Third party
 
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 48 seats 3 seats
Seats before 36 45 3
Seats won 45 36 3
Seat change 9 12
Preferential vote 1,738,081 1,663,215 455,960
Percentage 36.97% 35.37% 9.70%
Swing 3.66 6.21 0.13
TPP 54.26% 45.74%
TPP swing 6.29 6.29


Premier before election

Dominic Perrottet
Liberal–National Coalition

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 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 was the first Labor government in the state in 12 years, ending the longest period of Coalition government in New South Wales history.

The election was also the second time in history that the Australian Labor Party had 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.

Though the Coalition was defeated, Labor was unable to win enough seats to govern with a majority, resulting in a hung parliament. However, Labor was able to form government with the support of independent MPs Alex Greenwich, Greg Piper, and Joe McGirr, who guaranteed Labor confidence and supply. Piper also made an agreement with Labor to become the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, having previously served as a deputy speaker.

New South Wales has compulsory voting, with optional preferential, instant runoff voting in single-member electorates 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 the election. The NSW government had suspended the use of iVote after the 2021 NSW local council elections saw five wards affected by access outages, with three significant enough that an analysis suggested there was a 60% chance the wrong candidate had been elected. As a result, the NSW Supreme Court ordered that those elections be voided and re-run.