Mike Baird has been re-elected as New South Wales Premier despite a big swing to Labor in the state election.
ABC election analyst Antony Green has called the result, saying Labor will be unable to win enough seats to form Government even though they received a swing of around 10 per cent.
“There’s been a 10 per cent swing, [and] that’s a statewide swing,” Mr Green said.
“The Labor Party needed to be going beyond that to win this election, and they may win Strathfield, but they certainly won’t win the election.”
It has been reported that Opposition Leader Luke Foley has already called Mr Baird to concede defeat.
Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian said the Government had expected to lose seats but was “thrilled” with the outcome so far.
“We’re thrilled with some of the results we’re seeing, but there is still a lot of counting to go,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“It’s interesting to see in some areas we’re actually seeing swings to the Government, which we hadn’t anticipated.
“So far, I’m pleasantly surprised with the result. I hadn’t anticipated that we’d hold onto some of these areas quite as well as we have.”
The result was in little doubt, with exit polls predicting the outcome as voting ended at 6:00pm.
Early counting showed the swing against the incumbent Government was inconsistent throughout the state, but the Coalition would hold enough key seats to retain power.
Earlier this evening, deputy Labor leader Linda Burney said she believed Labor was likely to lose the election, based on the exit polls.
But she said the swing back to Labor was important for the party’s standing in future elections.
She told 702 ABC Sydney she knew Labor would not win enough seats to form government, and would now instead focus on rebuilding.
“The real issue for us is that this is being seen as a rebuild after the 2011 devastation.
“If we can take the margins off seats right across NSW, and I think we will, that puts us in a fantastic position for forthcoming elections.”
This post first appeared on ABC online and is republished here with full permission.
Top Comments
Tony Abbott can take little comfort from this result where one of the most popular leaders in the country suffered a 10% swing against him.
Baird was popular (his opponents were not) and won an election even after promising to do some unpopular things. Contrast this with Abbott - an unpopular leader who won an election after promising NOT to do unpopular things, then committed to doing them immediately after winning.
I fail to see why some commentators think the NSW result gives Abbott more breathing room.
"I fail to see why some commentators think the NSW result gives Abbott more breathing room"
So it IS true that playing with it causes blindness!
Because the swing was far far less than expected. Four years ago the swing to liberal was astronomical and the labor party was all but decimated. Many of the seats the libs won were in the labor heartland and were won with tiny margins. This is a bigger than expected win for liberal, which probably, (unfortunately), does give Abbott some confidence.
Labor won back 15 of the 18 traditionally blue ribbon Labor seats that it lost in the last election. That was expected. Labor did not take any traditional LNP seats from the government and the Greens took two seats from Labor. I wonder how Bill Shorten is feeling right now?
The commentators are referring to the result as the second worst loss for Labor in the history of the NSW branch.