1947 New South Wales state election

1947 New South Wales state election
	3 May 1947
	3 May 1947
All 90 seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly; 46 Assembly seats were needed for a majority
	Legislative Assembly after the election
Premier before election; James McGirr; Labor	Elected Premier ; James McGirr; Labor

The 1947 New South Wales state election was held on 3 May 1947. It was conducted in single member constituencies with compulsory preferential voting and was held on boundaries created at a 1940 redistribution. The election was for all of the 90 seats in the Legislative Assembly.

Issues

At the beginning of 1947, Labor had been in power for 6 years under the premiership of William McKell. The urban conservative parties, which had been in a state of disarray at the previous election in 1944 had been unified as the Liberal Party of Australia under the federal leadership of Robert Menzies. However, in New South Wales the state Liberals had lost their two most experienced and capable leaders, Reginald Weaver who had died in November 1945 and Alexander Mair who had resigned from parliament to unsuccessfully contest a NSW senate seat at the 1946 federal election. They had been led by Vernon Treatt since March 1946. In February 1947, 3 months before the election was due, McKell stunned most people in the Labor Party and general community by announcing that he would resign to take up the position of Governor-General. McKell's preference as a successor was his ally in the struggle against Jack Lang, Bob Heffron. However, revealing the residual influence of Lang, the caucus chose his preferred candidate, the Housing Minister, James McGirr. Both parties went to the election with untried leaders. However, residual respect for McKell, continuing economic growth, the popularity of the federal Labor government and the memory of the factional fights among the state's conservative politicians gave Labor a significant advantage in the campaign.[1]

Results

While Labor lost some of the traditionally conservative seats it had picked up at the 1944 election to the Liberal Party, the result of the election was a landslide victory for Labor. Many of the gains of the Liberal and Country parties were conservative members who had been elected as independents at the previous election. They had rejoined the parties when some degree of order had been restored:

Australian Labor Party 52 seats
Lang Labor 2 seats
Liberal 18 seats
Country Party 15 seats
Joint Liberal-Country Party endorsement 1 seat
Independent 2 seats

Aftermath

McGirr, Treatt and Country Party Leader Michael Bruxner retained their leadership roles throughout the parliament.

There were 11 by-elections during the parliament with a net loss of 3 seats for Labor.

Seats changing party representation

Seat	Incumbent member		New member

Albury	John Hurley	Labor	Doug Padman	Liberal
Corowa [lower-alpha 1]		Independent	Ebenezer Kendell	Country
Drummoyne	Robert Greig	Labor	Robert Dewley	Liberal
Hornsby	Sydney Storey	Independent Democrat	Sydney Storey	Liberal
Lachlan	John Chanter	Labor	Robert Medcalf	Country Party
Lane Cove	Henry Woodward	Labor	Ken McCaw	Liberal
Mosman	Donald Macdonald	Independent	Pat Morton	Liberal
Nepean	Joseph Jackson	Independent Democrat	Joseph Jackson	Liberal
Orange	Bob O'Halloran	Labor	Charles Cutler	Country
Oxley	Les Jordan	Independent	Les Jordan	Country
Ryde [lower-alpha 2]		Independent Democrat	Eric Hearnshaw	Liberal
Tamworth	Bill Chaffey	Independent	Bill Chaffey	Country

Key dates

Date	Event
29 March 1947	The Legislative Assembly was dissolved, and writs were issued by the Governor to proceed with an election.
3 April 1947	Nominations for candidates for the election closed at noon.
3 May 1947	Polling day.
127 May 1947	Last day for the writs to be returned and the results formally declared.
28 May 1947	Opening of 35th Parliament.

Tabulated results

New South Wales state election, 3 May 1947 Legislative Assembly << 1944–1950 >>
Enrolled voters		1,852,787[lower-alpha 3]
Votes cast		1,621,257		Turnout	94.61	+3.19
Informal votes		32,262		Informal	1.99	−1.14
Summary of votes by party
Party		Primary votes	%	Swing	Seats	Change
	Labor	730,194	45.95	+ 0.75	52	−4
	Liberal	470,485	29.60	+4.41	18	+2
	Country	162,467	10.22	−0.19	15	+5
	Independent	94,163	5.92	+0.20	2	−3
	Lang Labor	64,851	4.08	−5.25	2	−
	Communist	27,237	1.71	−0.03	0	−
	Combined Liberal/Country endorsement	14,801	0.93	+0.93	1	+1
	Independent Labor	13,917	0.88	−0.91	0	−
	Independent Liberal	11,150	0.49	+0.49	0	−
	Protestant Labor	3,361	0.21	+0.21	0	−
Total		1,589,265			90

Notes

Kendell had won the seat at the 1946 Corowa by-election caused by the resignation of Independent Christopher Lethbridge.
Hearnshaw had won the seat at the 1945 Ryde by-election caused by the death of Independent James Shand.
There were 1,713,921 enrolled voters in 82 contested electorates and 138,866 were enrolled in 8 uncontested electorates (5 Labor and 3 Country). [2]

References

McMullin, Ross (1991). The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891-1991. Oxford University Press. pp. 244–5. ISBN 0-19-554966-X.
Green, Antony. "1947 election totals". New South Wales Election Results 1856-2007. Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved 31 July 2019.