An election for the leadership of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party was held in June 2021., triggered by the resignation of Leader

Jodi McKay Jodi Leyanne McKay (born 16 August 1969) is a former Australian politician who was the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of New South Wales from June 2019 until May 2021. She previously served as a member of the New South Wales Legislat ...

on 28 May 2021. Nominations for the leadership opened at 11:00 AEST on 4 June 2021. Each candidate would have had 48 hours to produce at least 15 signatures from caucus members to nominate. With

Chris Minns Christopher John Minns (born 17 September 1979) is an Australian politician who is the leader of the NSW Labor Party. He was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the member for Kogarah for the Labor Party at the 2015 New South ...

as the only candidate to nominate for the leadership, he was elected unopposed as the new party leader. Prue Car was elected unopposed as deputy party leader four days later.

Background

Following Labor's loss in the 2021 Upper Hunter by-election, then-leader

resigned under pressure from the party caucus. Initially the leadership election saw former opposition leader Michael Daley, who led Labor to a defeat in the

2019 New South Wales state election The 2019 New South Wales state election was held on Saturday 23 March 2019 to elect the 57th 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 ...

declare his candidacy for a second time on 30 May 2021.

would subsequently announce his candidacy for a third time the next day, having lost to Daley and McKay in previous ballots. On 4 June 2021, on the date nominations opened, Daley announced his withdrawal from the election citing the lack of support and "for the good of the party". The leadership election represents the fifth time that Labor has changed its leadership since the defeat in the 2011 election with only two leaders having led the party to an election as of 2021.

Candidates

Under party rules, if there were more than one candidate, the election would be a combined vote by the party membership and the Labor members of the

Parliament of New South Wales The Parliament of New South Wales is a bicameral legislature in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), consisting of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly (lower house) and the New South Wales Legislative Council (upper house). Eac ...

, with each component weighted equally. As there was only one candidate (

) nominated for leadership, Minns was elected unopposed.

Declared

, Shadow Minister for Transport

Withdrew

* Michael Daley, Leader of the Opposition (2018–2019)

Declined

* Ryan Park, Shadow Minister for Health *

Paul Scully Paul Stuart Scully (born 29 April 1968) is a British politician serving as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tech and the Digital Economy. A member of the Conservative Party, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sutto ...

, MP for

Wollongong Wollongong ( ), colloquially referred to as The Gong, is a city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. The name is believed to originate from the Dharawal language, meaning either 'five islands/clouds', 'ground near wate ...

Controversies

Daley

On 31 May 2021, a number of

Asian Australian Asian Australians refers to Australians of Asian ancestry, whether full or partial, including naturalised Australians who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants. At the 2021 census, the number of ances ...

members and elected officials of

NSW Labor The New South Wales Labor Party, officially known as the Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch) and commonly referred to simply as NSW Labor, is the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party. The parliamentary leader is elect ...

released a joint statement criticising Michael Daley's candidacy citing comments made in 2018 about how residents in New South Wales were "being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs." While Daley apologised about the comments prior to the 2019 state election, many have attributed the swing against the ALP in electorates in the

Georges River The Georges River, also known as Tucoerah River, is an intermediate tide-dominated drowned valley estuary, located to the south and west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The river travels for approximately in a north and then easterly ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

in the 2019 election owing to Daley's comments. The Georges River local government area sees over 22.8% of residents having

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

ancestry according to the and includes the electorates of

Kogarah Kogarah () is a suburb of Southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Kogarah is located 14 kilometres (9 miles) south-west of the Sydney central business district and is considered to be the centre of the St George area. Loca ...

and Oatley. Both electorates saw a heavy swing against the ALP in 2019 with Oatley seeing a swing towards the

Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...

from 6.6% in 2015 to 10.3% in 2019 while Kogarah, held by prospective leadership candidate

went from 6.9% to less than 2% in the same election. On 1 June 2021, Daley apologised again on ABC Radio for his "offensive" comments.

Minns

A report by

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

on 31 May reported that the head office of NSW Labor was "encouraging" members of the caucus to support Minns' candidacy for the leadership to avoid a contested ballot. In addition, another report by The Daily Telegraph also stated that Shadow Minister for Health Ryan Park decided not to contest the leadership to ensure a quick succession of leadership. The 2019 leadership election which saw outgoing leader

defeating Minns went for 22 days to finalise a result.

References

{{Labor Party (NSW) 2021 elections in Australia Australian Labor Party leadership spills Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch) leadership election