The NSW Liberal party room has elected a barrister and moderate to lead the coalition in opposition, nearly one month after the its state election defeat.
Former attorney-general Mark Speakman won a party room vote in NSW parliament when Liberal MPs met on Friday.
He had earlier declared he would run for NSW opposition leader on Friday morning, as a number of MPs threw their support behind the Cambridge-educated MP from Cronulla.
“I’m running on a united team with Damien Tudehope and Natalie Ward,” Mr Speakman told reporters as he entered parliament with the pair.
Mr Speakman’s main competition came from former minister and right factionist Anthony Roberts, who signalled earlier this month he intended to run.
Alister Henskens, another ex-minister who tested his leadership chances after the March 25 election loss, would not confirm before the meeting if he would run.
Mark Coure told AAP he would back Mr Speakman.
“I think he’ll do a wonderful job for the Liberal Party.”
Another former minister, James Griffin, said Mr Speakman was the best man to hold the new Labor government to account.
Former deputy leader and moderate Matt Kean arrived at the parliament with MP Chris Rath, who both declined to say who they would support.
The party room is also voting to replace Mr Kean, who resigned in the wake of the coalition’s election defeat.
“The dust has had time to settle and there’s a lot of hard work ahead,” Mr Kean said.
“What we need is a strong, stable and sensible leader to hold Labor to account.”
MPs were still voting on other leadership positions as the party room meeting continued.
Conservative western Sydney MP Tanya Davies was tipped for the deputy role after running on a platform of recapturing suburban Sydney seats lost to Labor.
The Badgerys Creek MP made headlines last year when she caught COVID-19 after speaking at a rally against vaccine mandates outside the state parliament.
A challenge from North Shore MP Felicity Wilson had been expected to complicate Ms Davies’ chances.
Newly elected Liberal MP Kellie Sloane’s name was also floated as a possible deputy but she did not contest at Friday’s meeting.
Ms Ward, the former women’s minister, is favourite to become the leader of the upper house, replacing ex-finance minister Mr Tudehope.
Premier Chris Minns said he had a shared responsibility to work with the new opposition leader to guide policy decisions and improve the state.
“All I care about is making NSW as good as it can be … so I take the position seriously, it’s a very difficult job,” Mr Minns told reporters on Thursday.
Earlier this month, junior coalition partner the NSW Nationals re-elected leader Paul Toole and deputy Bronnie Taylor during their own party room meeting.
By Phoebe Loomes in Sydney
