Dominic Perrottet becomes 46th NSW Premier

NSW Treasurer, Mr Dominic Perrottet has won the party room ballot 39 votes to five, comfortably defeating Planning Minister Rob Stokes and will take over as the 46^th Premier of New South Wales.

Stuart Ayres, Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney will become his deputy leader and Matt Kean, who is the current Environment Minister, is expected to be promoted to Treasurer.

“It’s been an honour and an absolute privilege to be elected as the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party,” Mr Perrottet told reporters after emerging from the party room on Tuesday.

"I really appreciate the trust my colleagues have put in me today," he said.

Mr Perrottet’s elected as the new lstate liberal leader after his predecessor Gladys Berejiklian resigned as a result of an anti-corruption investigation into her conduct in office.

Health Minister Mr Brad Hazzard said the atmosphere in the room was “good, but obviously sad”, because MPs were mourning the loss of Ms Berejiklian as leader.

“We talked about Gladys, obviously, how sad we all are,” he told to reporters.

In a statement on Friday, he said Ms Berejiklian’s departure was “an incredibly sad day for NSW”.

“The interests of the people of NSW must always come first, and the priority for the government is to ensure we continue to keep people safe, and that we reopen the economy and get people back to work, kids back to school, and life back to normal as fast as possible,” Mr Perrottet said.

Mr Perrottet graduated from Redfield College, a Catholic school that has an Opus Dei priest as its chaplain, and has said his politics are partly influenced by his Christian faith.

The 39-year-old father of six makes no apologies for his beliefs, which extend to warning supporters of abortion they are on the “wrong side of history”, opposing same-sex marriage and attacking the “pronoun police” who encourage the use of gender neutral language.

In 2017, he outlined his opposition to same-sex marriage on the grounds that “marriage is about every child’s fundamental right to grow up with their own mum and dad”.

He has previously warned Australia should stop “throwing money” at welfare because it is contributing to rising divorce rates and single parent families.

Mr Perrottet also opposed the decriminalisation of abortion in NSW on the grounds that he could not support laws that stopped “the beating heart of an unborn child”.