A former senior NSW Labor minister claims Nathan Rees was elevated to the state's top job in 2008 because powerbrokers thought there were already "too many wogs" in cabinet.

Frank Sartor has penned his political memoirs called Fog on the Hill and extracts from the book have been published in Fairfax newspapers this morning.

In the extracts, Mr Sartor claims that when then-premier Morris Iemma was fairing badly in the polls, the state ALP were hesitant to replace him with another minister of ethnic decent.

Mr Sartor recalls a conversation with then-state secretary Karl Bitar.

He claims the former powerbroker said Mr Rees was favoured to take-over because "cabinet was too on the nose and that there were too many wogs".

At the time cabinet was made up of Morris Iemma, Joe Tripodi, Michael Costa, John Della Bosca and John Hatzistergos.

Mr Sartor claims that Mr Rees represented a break from that - an "Aussie westie".

He also describes former premier Kristina Keneally as almost obscenely ambitious.