Gladys Berejiklian says she isn't bothered by the scrutiny she can endure as NSW premier but often she'll text her sisters and ask them to "tell mum and dad not to worry".
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Ms Berejiklian, whose sister Mary memorably came to her defence earlier this year by telling an online commenter to "grow some pubes", says her family takes on criticism more than she does.
"In a job like mine, you're always going to have people who don't like you even if they don't know you and I'm okay with that," she said on Friday.
"So I'm actually the most relaxed about it in my family, but I don't think they worry about it as much as they did.
"I think they just think it's unfair because they know that I've worked hard and I sacrifice a lot - but that's normal, a lot of people do that."
The premier sat down with ABC reporter Leigh Sales at a corporate lunch in Sydney, with the pair chatting about education, energy and climate change, federal financial relations and infrastructure.
She also touched on recent Sydney apartment evacuations and made the case for a national energy framework, saying the states and the Commonwealth needed to agree on a reasonable strategy.
"I'm actually confident that will happen. I think there's goodwill around that," she said.
Asked what keeps the NSW premier up at night, Ms Berejiklian said it was a combination of the big things as well as "things at a very human level".
"The question for me is, if there's a failure in society - whether it's a market failure or a safety issue, the most difficult question for me every day is when do I step in and when do I let things take care of themselves," she told Sales.
"That's probably what keeps me awake at night the most."
Australian Associated Press