Against an unprecedented conservative swing, support for The Greens continued to grow at this state election, with a 2 per cent increase in our statewide vote from the 2007 election. We have secured two seats in the Upper House, and counting continues to decide if Jeremy Buckingham will take a third spot to increase our numbers from 4 to 5 Greens MPs.
In the seat of Balmain counting continues in a tight contest between the Greens' Jamie Parker, Labor's Verity Firth and the Liberal candidate James Falk. Counting also continues in Marrickville, and though the results are very close it looks like Labor will scrape through to hold the seat.
The Greens received some strong results across NSW. On Sydney’s North Shore we shifted the electoral pendulum, outpolling Labor in eight northern Sydney electorates, including the seat of North Shore where a two per cent swing to the Greens broke through the 20 per cent primary vote barrier.
In the Far North Coast seats of Lismore and Ballina positive swings delivered more than 20 per cent of the primary vote to the Greens. In Lismore we won seven booths in total.
The Hunter and Illawarra regions recorded a swing to the Greens while Labor was severely punished. The Greens doubled their previous results in the far-western seat of Murray-Darling, and in the South Coast seat of Bega we received a 5 per cent swing.
The Greens ran a positive policy-based campaign which received unprecedented support from volunteers across the state. Thank you again to everyone who contributed to The Greens NSW biggest ever state election campaign.
Counting continues this week, and final results will be known next week. Watch this space for updates.