Tonight, in the Australian state of New South Wales, Barry O’Farrell has swept 16 years of Labor government into history with a landslide victory. The magnitude of his 17 per cent swing has surprised many. Labor is likely to end up with as few as 20 seats in the 93-seat parliament.
During the election campaign, while Mr O’Farrell could have played it safe and stuck to state issues, he choose to also campaigned on the federal issue of the carbon tax. Remarkably, Mr O’Farrell also mentioned the carbon tax and the need to “fight the carbon tax” in his victory speech.
According to Samantha Maiden writing in the Herald Sun: While the outcome was regarded as a foregone conclusion, Labor MPs at a state and federal level complained the Prime Minister’s decision to announce a carbon tax hurt the campaign.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.