Staggering Swing For Wollongong Mp Wollongong

Illawarra Mercury

Monday March 26, 2007

By PAUL McINERNEY

IN her relatively short political career as the Member for Wollongong, Noreen Hay has made a habit of surprising her critics.

Her election victory on Saturday would have stunned them.

While disgruntled voters across the state delivered a 3 per cent swing against Labor, Ms Hay attracted a staggering 61 per cent of the primary vote - up 13 per cent on her 2003 primary vote of 47.85.

"I was hoping my hard work in the past four years might get me a small increase in the primary vote, but this was a total, but very pleasant, surprise," Ms Hay said.

This election campaign was in stark contrast to the one in 2003, when she had to battle disaffected elements of the trade union movement and an extremely malicious whispering campaign involving allegations of sexual misconduct.

"This time around I was judged on what voters could see, rather than what they had heard," she said.

The former trade union official said one of the unknowns of this election was the impact of boundary redistributions which saw her lose solid Labor booths in Towradgi and gain less certain booths in Mt Kembla, Cordeaux Heights and Farmborough Heights.

"For an area I did not represent in the past four years, the results from those areas were phenomenal," she said.

With the retirement of a number of senior MPs at this election and a promise by Premier Morris Iemma to "refresh" his front bench, Ms Hay said she was hopeful her strong electoral performance might catch the eye of party powerbrokers.

WOLLONGONG

48,724 enrolled. 75.27% counted

PRATT, ClarrieCDP200605.70FARES, LennyIND158304.50ROBERTS, MadeleineDEM53601.52CHEHOFF, MichaelAAFI61201.74MOORE, JessSA51001.45FOWLER, ColinLP555515.79HAY, NoreenALP2106059.87JONES, TrevorGRN331509.42

FORMAL3517795.92

INFORMAL149704.08

TOTAL 36674

Two Candidate Preferred:

FOWLERLP710620.20

HAYALP2299465.37

© 2007 Illawarra Mercury

Back to News Index | Back to Home