Luke Foley says he expects Labor would continue to oppose premier Mike Baird's privatisation plan, but said that would be a mere "debating point" in a Liberal-led Parliament.
Mr Foley said the Labor caucus would review the party's platform after the election as normal, but he did not expect opposition to the power lease plan to change.
"I'd be very, very surprised if Labor moved away from that," he said. "The overwhelming opinion of the party is in favour of maintaining [public] ownership".
Mr Foley said the swing towards his party, of about 9 per cent, was based in part on opposition to privatisation. "I have a mandate from Labor voters."
But he said he expected that opposition to be rendered moot by political arithmetic
"What Labor does in the upper house may be an interesting debating point, but the Coalition will have the numbers they need," he said.
Liberals are expecting to win about nine seats in the upper house. That would leave them reliant upon the support of the Reverend Fred Nile's Christian Democratic Party to pass the plan.
Mr Nile has said he intends to be "constructive" on the issue, but has demanded a public inquiry into the matter and spoken out against Chinese ownership of the electricity network.
Mr Foley was appearing in St Marys with several of the six MPs from western Sydney who won seats from the government last night.
He praised the way Labor had run the campaign but conceded the Greens had done well to win seats on the north coast with a targeted campaign.
On Saturday night, he said Labor had welcomed the return of its "heartland" in western Sydney, the central coast and the Hunter, and the party had become electable once more.
"We've gone from a rump in the old parliament to a real opposition," he said. "The conventional wisdom was that we'd be out of power for [16 years].
"Suddenly, the next election is very winnable for Labor.
Liberal commentators have not been so generous in their assessment. The party's federal director, Brian Loughnane, said the party's primary vote was at a historic low of 38.5 per cent.
"You can always hope for more," Mr Foley conceded. "Most first-term leaders would jump at a 9 per cent swing […] against a Premier at the peak of his popularity.
"This election was a launching pad for my leadership - and we have lift-off."
