2011 New South Wales state election

The centre-left Labor Party, led by Premier Kristina Keneally, and the centre-right Liberal Party, led by Leader of the Opposition Barry O'Farrell, were the two main parties in New South Wales. In the 2007 state election, of 93 seats total, Labor won 52 seats, the Liberals won 22 seats and the Nationals, led by Andrew Stoner, who are in coalition with the Liberals, won 13 seats. Six seats were retained by independents. Smaller parties which hold no seats in the lower house but achieved significant votes in 2007 include The Greens and the Christian Democratic Party.

On 18 October 2008, four state electorates (Lakemba, Ryde, Cabramatta, Port Macquarie) went to by-elections as a result of the resignation of the Premier, two of his ministers, and an independent who left after winning a federal by-election. The results in Ryde, Cabramatta, and Lakemba showed the largest by-election swing against Labor in its history.^[1] The results showed a significant swing towards the Liberal Party with a swing of 22.7 percentage points in former health minister Reba Meagher's seat of Cabramatta, but it was retained by ALP candidate Nick Lalich,^[1] and a swing of 13 points against Labor in former premier Morris Iemma's seat of Lakemba, also retained by an ALP candidate, Robert Furolo.^[1] Ryde, once a safe Labor seat, with a swing of 23.1 points delivered former deputy premier John Watkins' seat to Victor Dominello. Peter Besseling, the independent candidate, won Port Macquarie, left vacant after the resignation of Nationals-turned-independent member Rob Oakeshott, over the Nationals by a two-party margin of 54.5–45.5%, despite a swing of 23.7 points to the Nationals. On 19 June 2010 a by-election in the electoral district of Penrith^[2] was triggered as a result of the resignation of Labor Party MP Karyn Paluzzano, with Liberal candidate Stuart Ayres winning the seat with a two-party-preferred swing of more than 25 points, the biggest swing against an incumbent government in New South Wales history, until the 2013 Miranda by-election which eclipsed it with a 26-point two-party swing against the Liberal/National government.^[3]

Key dates

• Expiry of 54th Parliament: 12am on Friday, 4 March 2011
• Issue of Writs: 5 March 2011
• Close of Nominations: 10 March 2011
• Polling Day: Saturday 26 March 2011
• Return of the Writs: 30 April 2011^[4]
• Meeting of 55th Parliament: By Monday, 16 May 2011

Campaign

The Labor Party launched their campaign on 5 February 2011^[5] in Liverpool within the electoral district of Macquarie Fields.^[6] Premier Keneally launched the Labor Party's campaign slogan "Protecting jobs – Supporting families". In attendance for the launch were former Prime Minister Bob Hawke and former Premiers Wran and Carr.

The Liberal and Nationals Coalition launched their campaign on 20 February 2011 at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith within the electoral district of Penrith with the slogan: "Real Change for NSW". In attendance for the launch were both Liberal and Nationals Leaders O'Farrell and Stoner as well as federal Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott, former Liberal Premiers and Leaders Greiner, Fahey, and Chikarovski.^[7]

The Coalition had been leading in opinion polling for almost three years, and were unbackable favourites throughout the campaign to win the election. The final Newspoll had support for Labor at an all-time low with 23 percent of the primary vote and 35.9 percent of the two-party vote. Bookmakers were paying $1.01 for a Coalition win with Labor getting as much as $36 and one agency even paid out the winnings and declared the winner a week earlier.^[8] At one point, Labor was widely predicted to win as few as 13 seats, seven less than the actual result.^[9] According to several pollsters, Labor was in danger of losing several seats where it had not been seriously threatened in decades, as well as several that it had held for a century or more. Indeed, there were concerns that Labor would not win enough seats to form a credible shadow cabinet.

Resulting parliament

The Liberal/National Coalition won the largest proportional number of seats in NSW state history with 69 of 93 seats in the lower house (74.2 percent of the chamber)—in contrast, Labor won 69 of 99 seats (69.7 percent of the chamber) at Neville Wran's second "Wranslide" in 1981 election. Labor won 20 seats, the lowest for Labor in NSW Parliament in over a century, and the worst defeat that a sitting government in NSW has ever suffered. Many prominent Labor MPs and ministers lost their seats including Verity Firth, David Borger, Matt Brown, Jodi McKay, Virginia Judge, Phil Costa and Kevin Greene.^[10] In the process, the Coalition took dozens of seats in areas considered Labor heartland, such as western Sydney and the Upper Hunter—some on swings of well over 10 per cent. The Liberals actually won 51 seats, enough for a majority in their own right—the first time the main non-Labor party in the state had achieved this since adopting the Liberal banner in 1945. Although O'Farrell thus had no need for the support of the Nationals, he opted to retain the Coalition.

In the upper house however, where half of the chamber was up for election, the landslide was not enough to deliver a Coalition majority. Three additional votes outside of the Liberal/National Coalition were required to pass legislation. The balance of power shifted from the Greens to the Shooters and Fishers Party and Christian Democratic Party. With two seats each held by the latter two parties, both needed to give legislative support if Labor and the Greens opposed legislation.^[11][12]

Where a Member of the Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council did not renominate to contest the election, their term ended at the dissolution of the parliament. Members who confirmed their retirement were:

Legislative Assembly

Legislative Council

Labor (4)

• Tony Catanzariti
• Kayee Griffin
• Christine Robertson
• Ian West

Greens (1)

• Ian Cohen

Opinion polling was conducted by firms such as Newspoll, Galaxy and Nielsen via random telephone number selection in city and country areas Sampling sizes consist of around 1200–1300 electors. The declared margin of error is ±3 percentage points.

Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly (IRV) – (CV)^[16][17][18]

Party			Votes	%	Swing	Seats	Change
		Liberal	1,602,457	38.58	+11.64	51	29
		National	521,864	12.56	+2.51	18	5
	Coalition total		2,124,321	51.15	+14.16	69	34
	Labor		1,061,352	25.55	–13.43	20	32
	Greens		427,144	10.28	+1.33	1	1
	Christian Democrats		129,431	3.12	+0.65	0
	Hatton's Independent Team		45,969	1.10	+1.10	0
	Family First		18,576	0.45	+0.45	0
	Socialist Alliance		3,180	0.07	+0.07	0
	Social Justice Network		3,173	0.07	+0.07	0
	Independent Australia First		2,446	0.06	+0.06	0
	Socialist Equality		2,056	0.05	+0.05	0
	Democratic Labor		1,855	0.04	+0.04	0
	United We Stand		1,414	0.03	+0.03	0
	Progressive Labour		1,372	0.03	+0.03	0
	Communist League		1,226	0.03	+0.03	0
	Sex Party		676	0.02	+0.02	0
	Democrats		617	0.01	–0.39	0
	Independent Protectionist		289	0.01	+0.01	0
	Independents		314,066	7.56	–1.62	3	3
Formal votes			4,153,335	96.72	+0.18	–	–
Informal votes			137,260	3.20	+0.43	–	–
Total			4,290,595	–	–	93	–
Registered voters / turnout			4,635,810	92.55	–0.09	–	–
Two-party-preferred vote
	Coalition		2,324,226	64.22	+16.48
	Labor		1,294,824	35.78	–16.48

Legislative Council

Legislative Council election, 2011

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats
					2011 Seats	2007 Seats	Total Seats	+/-
	Liberal/National Coalition	1,943,246	47.68	+13.50	11	8	19	+4
	Labor	967,242	23.73	-15.40	5	9	14	-5
	Greens	453,125	11.12	+2.00	3	2	5	+1
	Shooters and Fishers	150,741	3.70	+0.90	1	1	2	0
	Christian Democrats	127,233	3.12	-1.30	1	1	2	0
	Other	434,437	10.66	+0.30	0	0	0	0
Total		4,076,024	100.00	–	21	21	42	0

Seats changing hands

• *Figure is Greens v Liberal
• **Figure is from the 2007 state election, where Rob Oakeshott was the independent candidate.
• In addition, the Liberals retained Ryde and Penrith, which were gained from Labor at by-elections.
• Members listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election.

Every seat in New South Wales swung to the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis. The Coalition won the largest government in New South Wales history in a huge landslide, while Labor suffered the largest swing against a sitting government anywhere in Australia (and on any level) since World War II, as well as one of the worst defeats of a state government since Federation. This led to 12 consecutive years of Coalition government in New South Wales (the longest Coalition government and the third-longest state government overall in New South Wales history), until the Coalition was narrowly defeated in 2023.

The Liberals alone won more first preference votes than Labor (usually it takes both Coalition parties, the Liberals and the Nationals, to have a higher first preference vote than Labor).

Labor only had two safe seats after the defeat, both of which were in Western Sydney. The seats were Bankstown (on a 10.3% margin) and Liverpool (on a 14.7% margin). Labor only held five seats outside of Sydney (Cessnock, Keira, Shellharbour, Wallsend and Wollongong).

Ultimately, the Liberals won 29 seats from Labor (Blue Mountains, Camden, Campbelltown, Charlestown, Coogee, Drummoyne, East Hills, Gosford, Granville, Heathcote, Kiama, Londonderry, Maitland, Menai, Miranda, Mulgoa, Newcastle, Oatley, Parramatta, Riverstone, Rockdale, Smithdale, Strathfield, Swansea, The Entrance, Wollondilly and Wyong) while the Nationals won two seats from Labor (Bathurst and Monaro). The Nationals gained three seats from independents (Dubbo, Port Macquarie and Tamworth), which were Nationals seats held by personally popular independents. It is likely that Port Macquarie and Tamworth were regained by the Nationals easily due to a move by two independents in the federal seats of Lyne (Rob Oakeshott) and New England (Tony Windsor), which partially overlap with the respective state seats, which angered the locals, who are mostly liberal conservatives in some of the most safely-held Coalition seats in the country. The move that supposedly caused this was the decision of these two independents to support Julia Gillard, who formed a Labor minority government, over the Coalition under Tony Abbott (although Oakeshott stated that he would have supported the Coalition if Malcolm Turnbull was their leader instead of Abbott). Oakeshott and Windsor were personally popular in these seats (with Oakeshott even being an ex-National), but on traditional two-party-preferred contests, the Nationals were well ahead of Labor. The member for Port Macquarie, Peter Besseling, was friends with Oakeshott and previously worked as his advisor, thus angering Port Macquarie locals. Independents held just three seats after the election: Lake Macquarie, Northern Tablelands and Sydney.

The Greens won their first ever seat in New South Wales, the formerly-safe Labor seat of Balmain in inner-city Sydney, despite the Liberals winning the first preference vote.

• Government of New South Wales
• O'Farrell ministry
• First Baird ministry
• Shadow Ministry of John Robertson
• Post-election pendulum for the 2007 New South Wales state election
• Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 2011–2015
• Members of the New South Wales Legislative Council, 2011–2015

Wikimedia Commons has media related to New South Wales state election, 2011.

• ABC Online: 2011 New South Wales Election
• Daily Telegraph: The New South Wales State Election 2011
• 2011 NSW State Election Candidates, Parties and Lobbyists - snapshots of their webpages from 2011