1947 New South Wales state election

1947 New South Wales state election
	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]

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

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:

New South Wales state election, 3 May 1947 Legislative Assembly << 1944–1950 >>
Enrolled voters		1,852,787[lower-alpha 1]
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 [lower-alpha 2][lower-alpha 3]	485,286	30.50	+5.34	19	+7
	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	−
	Independent Labor	13,917	0.88	−0.91	0	−
	Independent Liberal [lower-alpha 4]	11,150	0.49	-1.92	0	−4
	Protestant Labor	3,361	0.21	+0.21	0	−
	Other			-4.50		−1
Total		1,589,265			90

Retiring members

William McKell (Labor, Redfern) resigned in February 1947; no by-election was held due to the proximity of the election.

Labor

Ted Horsington (Sturt)
John Sweeney (Bulli)

Seats changing party representation

Seat	1944			1947
Seat	Party		Member	Member	Party
Albury [lower-alpha 5]		Liberal		Doug Padman	Liberal
Corowa [lower-alpha 6]		Independent		Ebenezer Kendell	Country
Drummoyne		Labor	Robert Greig	Robert Dewley	Liberal
Hornsby		Independent Democrat	Sydney Storey		Liberal
Lachlan		Labor	John Chanter	Robert Medcalf	Country
Lane Cove		Labor	Henry Woodward	Ken McCaw	Liberal
Manly [lower-alpha 7]		Independent Democrat		Douglas Darby
Mosman		Independent	Donald Macdonald	Pat Morton
Nepean		Independent Democrat	Joseph Jackson [lower-alpha 8]
Orange		Labor	Bob O'Halloran	Charles Cutler	Country
Oxley		Independent Country	Les Jordan		Country
Ryde [lower-alpha 9]		Independent Democrat		Eric Hearnshaw	Liberal
Tamworth		Independent	Bill Chaffey		Country

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

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]
Includes Doug Padman (Albury) and Ray Bladwell (Goulburn) who were jointly endorsed by the Liberal and Country parties.
Swing and change are compared to the Democratic Party at the 1944 election.
Swing and change are compared to Independent Democrat at the 1944 election.
John Hurley (Labor) had won the seat at the 1946 Corowa by-election caused by the resignation of former Premier Alexander Mair (Liberal).
Ebenezer Kendell (Country) had won the seat at the 1946 Corowa by-election caused by the resignation of Independent Christopher Lethbridge.
Douglas Darby (Liberal) won the seat at the 1945 Manly by-election caused by the death of Independent Democrat turned Liberal Alfred Reid.
Joseph Jackson (Nepean) was re-elected in 1944 as Independent Democrat candidate and later joined the Liberal Party.
Eric Hearnshaw (Liberal) had won the seat at the 1945 Ryde by-election caused by the death of Independent James Shand.

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.