“No one has asked me to stand aside,” Ms McKay said today.
“In fact, colleagues have asked me to stay. If a ballot was held today I can tell you I would win that ballot.
“I have always tried to build consensus within our party, but it is clear that although I was elected leader…there were those within our party who have never accepted the outcome of that process.”
Ms McKay said that leadership “must almost always be about the institution” and knowing when “you step up and when you step down”.
“This is the only way that I know that I can unite our party,” she said, adding that when the new leader of NSW Labor is determined, the decision must be supported across the board.
“We have to work to win government in 2023, because New South Wales deserves no less.”
Labor head office is understood to have asked health spokesman Ryan Park not to contest the leadership in the interests of party unity.
Ms McKay has been the leader of the NSW opposition since mid-2019 and had previously vowed not to step down from the position.
However, pressure has mounted since the resignations of frontbencher Mr Minns and shadow treasurer Walt Secord.
This content first appear on 9news