NSW rejects Liberals, giving Labor a big majority

by Dr Hannah Middleton

As The Guardian goes to press, it is clear that NSW voters 
decisively rejected the Liberal Party in Saturday's poll and as a result 
the ALP has a majority of seats in the NSW Legislative Assembly (Lower 
House). Results for the Upper House are not expected until the end of this 
week.

NSW electors did not support the privatisation of electricity and were 
clearly not impressed by the Liberal bribe of $1,000 cash for electricity 
customers, flowing from the proposed sell-off.

The late decisions by the Liberals and Nationals to change their leaders 
also contributed to the 8.3 per cent swing against the Liberals across the 
State and 2.4 per cent swing against the Nationals.

The Liberals polled 24.5 per cent and the National Party, only 8.7 per cent 
of the primary vote.

New Liberal Leader Kerry Chikarovski was both shallow and inexperienced 
while the National's George Souris hardly made any impact at all.

Labor Premier Carr did not give electors any strong reasons for his re-
election. In fact there was much criticism of the Labor-Liberal law and 
order bidding war.

Carr's campaign virtually ignored the real needs of the people of NSW in 
areas including public health, public education and the high level of youth 
unemployment.

The swing to Labor was only 1.5 per cent, giving it 42.7 per cent of the 
primary vote but a substantial majority in the Lower House.

Independents

The vote for Independents and small parties went up 9.3 per cent across the 
State, revealing that disenchantment with the two-party system is still 
growing.

However, a matter of concern is that much of this increase went to 
conservative and right-wing candidates (from small parties and 
independents), partly reflecting the attention given to them by the media.

While the Greens were polling between four and five per cent across the 
State in the Lower House, One Nation was polling more than seven per cent 
State-wide and even won 20 per cent of the primary vote in Dubbo.

There are likely to be up to six Independents in the new Lower House, 
including Clover Moore who was returned again in Bligh.

Port Jackson

In the inner Sydney seat of Port Jackson, with 72 per cent of the vote 
counted, Communist Party candidate Denis Doherty had won 1.4 per cent of 
the primary vote, an increase on his vote in the recent Federal election.

In the previous State election, the No Aircraft Noise candidate won just 
over 20 per cent of the vote. With no NAN candidate this time, their vote 
went to an Independent (who gained 7.8 per cent of the primary vote), the 
Greens (7.5 per cent) and the Democrats (up 4.2 per cent).

The sitting ALP member increased her vote by 1.5 per cent.

The growth of support for candidates challenging the two-party system, 
especially those with strong roots in local issues, was reflected in Port 
Jackson.

Independent Jean Lennane, who ran on local issues, polled more than the 
nationally known Greens and Democrats. The Democratic Socialists, who did 
better than the CPA in the Federal election, ran a candidate in Port 
Jackson not widely known to the electorate and were outpolled by CPA 
candidate Denis Doherty who is a well-known activist on local issues.