Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Just two months ago Malcolm Turnbull declared the seat of Lindsay, around Penrith in western Sydney, "critical" to the Coalition's hold on power.
"If we hold this seat, then we will be returned to government and then we will be able to carry out our national economic plan," Turnbull said.
And in his final address to the National Press Club, Turnbull took time to single out the efforts of Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun, who he said was a chance of what would have been a surprise win in the Sydney seat of Werriwa.
As it turned out, Turnbull may yet cling to power.
In Lindsay, Liberal Fiona Scott suffered a 4.6 per cent swing against her and lost to Labor's Emma Husar.
In Macarthur, around the south-west Sydney suburb of Campbelltown, Liberal Russell Matheson suffered a 12.6 per cent swing, and lost the seat to Labor's Mike Freelander.
Similar results occurred in the Blue Mountains seat of Macquarie, in the coastal electorates of Paterson and Dobell, and the inland Eden-Monaro. On the south coast, the seat of Gilmour almost slipped away from the Coalition, while Mannoun ended up losing ground in Werriwa.
For the first time since 2010, Labor was poised to hold more seats in NSW than the Coalition.
According to state Labor leader Luke Foley, the results in NSW were primarily driven by federal factors, though local issues played some part.
"State Labor takes great heart from these results," Foley said.
"The forced merger of councils was a significant issue in Eden-Monaro and Paterson and I think the underfunding of the Nepean Hospital was a significant issue in Lindsay and Macquarie," he told Fairfax Media.
Foley also addressed the election debate about housing affordability. Labor's policy of curbing negative gearing was vociferously attacked by Turnbull, who said it would hit house prices.
But in areas likely to be sensitive to concerns over house prices – such as Lindsay or Werriwa – Labor's vote was strong.
"The mantra of [Mike] Baird and [Gladys] Berejiklian is that the only solution is a supply solution – that the only thing that ought to be done is to build more houses," Foley said of the housing policies of the NSW Premier and Treasurer.
"I think their refusal to look at other policy solutions is a mistake ... certainly in the policy sense but I think it has a political consequence as well," he said.
NSW ALP assistant general secretary John Graham said: "This result will keep Mike Baird awake at night."
Liberal strategists, however, said the Labor Party's scare campaign over Medicare was the dominant factor in the swing away from the Coalition in western Sydney.
One experienced campaigner said the Coalition underestimated the strength of that campaign, which was particularly forceful with "vulnerable people who had an acute sense of concern about healthcare".
Forced council mergers may have played a small role in seats such as Eden-Monaro and Paterson, the campaigner said, but were not decisive in the result.
In Lindsay, however, the insurgent independent campaign of conservative former Liberal Marcus Cornish also contributed to Scott's loss.
One Coalition politician who did appreciate Saturday's result was Deputy Premier and Nationals leader Troy Grant.
Had the Nationals not held on in marginal seats of Page, New England and Cowper, Labor may have been in a position to form government, a fact Grant was keen to point out to his Coalition colleagues.
"The community are sick of political spin," said Grant. "They just want substance – they don't want to hear about stability they want to see it, they want to feel it," he said.
In this environment of "anti-establishment sentiment" and "distrust of the major parties", Grant said the Nationals were poised to do well because of local community connections.
He also offered a thinly veiled jab at the performance of Turnbull. "More visible results and less talk might have been more advantageous," he said of the federal government's performance since Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott.
- With Anna Patty
