Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to take this opportunity to make some comments about the recent New South Wales election. First of all I would like to congratulate many of the people for their dedicated commitment throughout this campaign. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the role of many dedicated party members who worked very, very hard in what I have to say was one of the most ferocious and personally scurrilous campaigns ever launched by the Labor Party and their union mates. Despite the overall outcome I think there were some very, very good gains by the Liberal Party. Of course, the Labor Party will not tell us about that because in many, many seats across New South Wales there was a consistent message, and that was the swing against the Labor Party. I would like to bring some of those to the attention of the Senate.

For example, Chris Patterson, who ran for the seat of Camden and is mayor of Camden Council and family owner of the local public, faced an uphill battle against a sitting member. He faced a very great margin, and I was very pleased to see that he was able to achieve an over five per cent swing to the Liberal Party. Jonathon Flegg in the seat of Coogee: a swing of over six per cent. Greg Smith in the seat of Epping, I was very pleased to see, had a swing of over 10 per cent. Ray Williams: over eight per cent in the seat of Hawkesbury.