Mike Baird has been re-elected as New South Wales’ premier, as the Coalition won 52 of a potential 93 seats at Saturday’s election.
With just over 70% of the vote counted at time of writing, Luke Foley’s Labor Party secured an 8.4% swing from last election, .
But despite the swing, which sees 13 seats move from the hands of the Coalition to those of Labor, Baird was able to claim his victory as early as 9.40pm on Saturday night.
“We sought a mandate to make NSW great,” Baird told his supporters on election night. “The people of NSW have given us that mandate, and to them we say thank you.”
Baird committed to do what he and the Coalition promised pre-election, which included several rail-releated commitments.
“That’s what we’re going to do and the reason we’re going to do it is because I love this state,” he said.
Baird thanked his federal counterpart, prime minister Tony Abbott, for his support during the campaign, saying Abbott “understood the need to put more funds into NSW, and he has done that as a Prime Minister”.
With seat results all but certain, Baird’s Liberal Party is set to win 36 seats, having secured 36.2% of the state vote. The National Party has 16 seats, with 9.5% of the vote.
Labor has secured 34% of the vote so far, and 33 seats.