17 November 1973 (1973-11-17) 1976 → 49 seats 45 seats 44.33% 42.93% Date 17 November 1973 | 17 July 1959 2 December 1968 52 seats 44 seats 0.06 2.09 | |
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Winner Robert Askin | ||
Elections for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly were held in the state of New South Wales, Australia, on Saturday 17 November 1973. The result was a win for the Liberal-Country Party coalition under Sir Robert Askin, which had been in office since 1965.
Contents
Issues
The Legislative Assembly had been enlarged by three members to 99 adding the seats of Woronora, Penrith and Ku-ring-gai.
The election was held just eleven months after the Liberal/Country coalition lost the federal election after 23 years in power. Askin called an early election to take advantage of the increasing economic issues which had been attributed to the Whitlam Labor government.
Leader of the Legislative Council Neville Wran, who would become Premier at the next election moved from the unelected Legislative Council to the Legislative Assembly after the late retirement of Clarrie Earl in the seat of Bass Hill.
Results
The Democratic Labor Party won its only lower house seat at the 1973 election following the Liberal Party's incumbent for the northern Sydney seat of Gordon — Harry Jago failed to nominate in time. Conservative voters were urged to vote for the DLP candidate, Kevin Harrold.
1 There were 2,788,733 enrolled voters but 20,857 were enrolled in Broken Hill (Labor) which was uncontested at the election.