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1947 New South Wales state election

State election for New South Wales, Australia in May 1947

Field	Value
election_name	1947 New South Wales state election
country	New South Wales
type	parliamentary
ongoing	no
previous_election	1944 New South Wales state election
previous_year	1944
next_election	1950 New South Wales state election
next_year	1950
seats_for_election	All 90 seats in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
46 Assembly seats were needed for a majority
election_date
image1	[[File:JamesMcGirr1947.jpg	150x150px]]
leader1	James McGirr
leader_since1	6 February 1947
party1	Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch)
leaders_seat1	Bankstown
percentage1	45.95%
swing1	0.75
last_election1	56 seats
seats1	52
seat_change1	4
image2	[[File:Vernon Treatt.jpg	150x150px]]
leader2	Vernon Treatt
leader_since2	20 March 1946
party2	Liberal/Country coalition
leaders_seat2	Woollahra
percentage2	40.75%
swing2	11.43
last_election2	22 seats
seats2	34
seat_change2	12
map_image	1947 New South Wales state election.svg
map_size	400px
map_caption	Two-candidate-preferred margin by electorate
title	Premier
before_election	James McGirr
before_party	Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch)
after_election	James McGirr
after_party	Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch)

46 Assembly seats were needed for a majority

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.{{cite book

Key dates

Date	Event
6 February 1947	First McGirr ministry sworn in.
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.
19 May 1947	Second McGirr ministry sworn in.
27 May 1947	Last day for the writs to be returned and the results formally declared.
28 May 1947	Opening of 35th Parliament.

Results

Main article: Results of the 1947 New South Wales state election

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:

Retiring members

Seats changing party representation

Seat	1944
Albury
Corowa
Drummoyne		Liberal NSW}}
Hornsby
Lachlan
Lane Cove		Liberal NSW}}
Manly	Independent Democrat}}
Mosman
Nepean
Orange		Country NSW}}
Oxley	Independent Country NSW}}
Ryde
Tamworth

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.

Notes

References

Green, Antony. "1947 election totals". [[Parliament of New South Wales]].

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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