N.S.W. Election Might Be Close Run

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30739, 1 May 1965, Page 15

N.S.W. Election Might Be Close Run

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SYDNEY, April 30. More than 2,250,000 electors are expected to vote in the New South Wales state elections tomorrow.

For the last 24 years the state has had a Labour Government and although the Liberals are given their best chance yet of unseating the Government, the result is likely to be a very close one. At one stage the betting market had the Liberals as odds-on favourites, but the market had closed to even money today.

The Labour Party in the last Parliament held 53 of the state’s 94 seats with Liberal and Country Party representatives holding the rest. At tomorrow’s election only 92 electorates will be involved with the sitting member in each of the other two being returned unopposed. The election is being held over a vast area with more than 4000 polling places. Eight marginal seats in the Sydney metropolitan area and half a dozen in country areas which are regarded as marginal, will hold the key to the result.

Both leaders—the present Premier, Mr J. B. Renshaw,

and the Opposition leader. Mr R. Askin, of the Liberal Party, have expressed their confidence in the outcome of the poll. For the most part the policies of the two parties follow similar ground. In a campaign fought mainly by way of radio and television and one which failed to raise very much interest, the main issue became the Liberal Party’s promise of direct state aid to independent schools. In the last week of the campaign especially, the state-aid issue developed into a lively controversy. Apart from education, the main points of the two platforms were transport and housing. Voting is compulsory.