New South Wales state election, 1947

New South Wales state election, 1947

3 May 1947 (1947-05-03)

All 90 seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly 46 Assembly seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party   Leader James McGirr Vernon Treatt Party Labor Liberal/Country coalition Leader since 6 February 1947 20 March 1946 Leader's seat Bankstown Woollahra Last election 56 seats 26 seats Seats won 52 seats 33 seats Seat change 4 7 Percentage 45.95% 39.82% Swing 0.75 4.22

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 under the federal leadership of Robert Menzies. However, in New South Wales the 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

¶Hearnshaw had won the seat at a 1945 by-election caused by the death of Independent James Shand

‡ Kendell had won the seat at a 1946 by-election caused by the resignation of Independent Christopher Lethbridge

Key dates

Tabulated results

¹ 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

See also

• Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1947–1950
• Candidates of the New South Wales state election, 1947

Elections and referendums in New South Wales
General elections	Colonial 1856 1858 1859 1860 1864–65 1869–70 1872 1874–75 1877 1880 1882 1885 1887 1889 1891 1894 1895 1898 State 1901 1904 1907 1910 1913 1917 1920 1922 1925 1927 1930 1932 1935 1938 1941 1944 1947 1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 1971 1973 1976 1978 1981 1984 1988 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019
Referendums	1898 1899 1903 1916 1928 1933 1947 1954 1961 1967 1969 1976 1978 1981 1991 1995
Other	By-elections