Bourke was an avowed Whig. In November 1830, the Whigs won government in a climate of reform. Major-General Bourke was appointed to succeed Sir Ralph Darling, who was also Irish-born, as Governor of New South Wales in 1831. Bourke proved to be an able, if controversial, governor. In most of his efforts, he faced entrenched opposition from the local conservatives: the 'exclusive' faction in the New South Wales Legislative Council, and the Colonial Secretary Alexander Mcleay and the Colonial Treasurer Campbell Riddell. The newspaper "The Sydney Morning Herald" always opposed him. (The exclusives were hostile to the participation of ex-convicts ('emancipists') in civil life, hence were opposed to changes which moved the colony from military to civil governance.) Bourke described himself as being "pretty much in the situation that Earl Grey would find himself in if all members of his Cabinet were Ultra Tories and he could neither turn them out nor leave them".