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1973 New South Wales state election

State election for New South Wales, Australia in November 1973

Field	Value
election_name	1973 New South Wales state election
country	New South Wales
type	parliamentary
ongoing	no
previous_election	1971 New South Wales state election
previous_year	1971
next_election	1976 New South Wales state election
next_year	1976
seats_for_election	All 99 seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
50 Assembly seats were needed for a majority
election_date
image1	[[File:Robert Askin 1973.jpg	150x150px]]
leader1	Robert Askin
leader_since1	17 July 1959
party1	Liberal–Country Coalition
leaders_seat1	Pittwater
percentage1	44.33%
swing1	0.06
last_election1	49 seats
seats1	52
seat_change1	3
image2	[[File:Pat Hills.jpg	150x150px]]
leader2	Pat Hills
leader_since2	2 December 1968
party2	Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch)
leaders_seat2	Phillip
percentage2	42.93%
swing2	2.09
last_election2	45 seats
seats2	44 seats
seat_change2	1
map_image	1973 New South Wales state election.svg
map_size	400px
map_caption	Two-candidate-preferred margin by electorate
title	Premier
before_election	Robert Askin
before_party	Liberal–Country Coalition
after_election	Robert Askin
after_party	Liberal–Country Coalition

50 Assembly seats were needed for a majority

Elections for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly were held in the state of New South Wales, Australia, on Saturday 17 November 1973. The result was a win for the Liberal-Country Party coalition under Sir Robert Askin, which had been in office since 1965. As of 2023, this was the first and only time the Coalition won a fourth-term in New South Wales.

Issues

The Legislative Assembly had been enlarged by three members to 99 adding the seats of Woronora, Penrith and Ku-ring-gai.

The election was held just eleven months after the Liberal–Country coalition lost the federal election after 23 years in power. Askin called an early election to take advantage of the increasing economic issues which had been attributed to the Whitlam Labor government.

Leader of the Legislative Council Neville Wran, who would become Premier at the next election moved from the unelected Legislative Council to the Legislative Assembly after the late retirement of Clarrie Earl in the seat of Bass Hill.

Key dates

Date	Event
19 October 1973	The Legislative Assembly was dissolved, and writs were issued by the Governor to proceed with an election.
25 October 1973	Nominations for candidates for the election closed at noon.
17 November 1973	Polling day, between the hours of 8am and 6pm.
3 December 1973	The sixth Askin-Cutler ministry was constituted.
4 December 1973	Parliament resumed for business.
7 December 1973	The writ was returned and the results formally declared.

Results

The Democratic Labor Party won its only lower house seat at the 1973 election following the Liberal Party's incumbent for the northern Sydney seat of Gordon — Harry Jago failed to nominate in time. Conservative voters were urged to vote for the DLP candidate, Kevin Harrold.

| turnout % = 92.51 | informal % = 2.70 |votes % = 42.93 |votes % = 33.85 |votes % = 10.48 |votes % = 5.96 |votes % = 4.21 |votes % = 0.03 |votes % = 2.54 |}

Seats changing hands

Seat	Post-1973	Party	Member	Margin	Margin	Member	Party
Burrendong	Labor	Leo Nott	1.8	-5.6	3.8	Roger Wotton	Country
Gordon	Liberal	Harry Jago*	N/A	N/A	29.4	Kevin Harrold	Democratic Labor
South Coast	Liberal	Jack Beale	0.9	-2.3	1.7	John Hatton	Independent

Members listed in italics did not recontest their seats.
Sitting Liberal MP for Gordon, Harry Jago failed to renominate as a candidate by the deadline. As a result, the Liberal party endorsed the DLP candidate against the Labor candidate, and Kevin Harrold won the seat.
In addition, the Liberal party held the seat of Murray, which it had won from an Independent in the 1973 by-election.

Redistribution affected seats

Members listed in italics did not recontest their seats.
Sitting Labor member for Gosford, Keith O'Connell instead contested the new seat of Peats and won.
Sitting Labor member for Nepean, Ron Mulock instead contested the new seat of Penrith and won.

Post-election pendulum

The results for Coogee was based on the result of the by-election that was held as a result of the decision by the Court of Disputed Returns due to the closeness off the result for the electorate at the 1973 election.

Notes

References

(1973). "1973 election totals".
Hughes, Colin A.. (1977). "A handbook of Australian government and politics, 1965-1974". ANU Press.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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