Preston easily wins Hawkesbury for the Liberals, though margin falls, One Nation polls strongly

In news which will be of little surprise to anyone with even a passing interest in politics, Liberal Robyn Preston has once again held on to one of the state’s safest blue ribbon seats, though likely with a slightly reduced majority.

MP Robyn Preston

Postal votes have still mostly to be counted but they are unlikely to change the final result, with 62.8% of votes counted by Sunday morning, and with Ms Preston way out in front with, currently, 16,363 first preference votes against her nearest challenger, Labor’s Amanda Kotlash on 9140 votes.

The swings are 5.0% against the Liberals and 5.2% to Labor.

National broadcaster the ABC called the seat for Ms Preston early last night and based on counted votes project a Liberal margin drifting down from 17.5% to an estimated 16.6%, still a very healthy margin for the Liberal who first stood for the seat in 2019 after it was previously held by former Premier Dominic Perrottet.

The big surprise is the One Nation vote which on first preference shows them in third place with 3775 votes, as against the Greens who so far have polled 2744. That could change though once preferences are added into the mix.

The swing to One Nation and its candidate Susane Popovski is 10.3%, while Danielle Wheeler for the Greens has seen a swing of just 1.2%.

Independent Angela Maguire has so far picked up 1484 votes on first preference and Eddie Dogramaci has scored 1273 first preference votes, with independent Tony Pettitt on 982, followed by Elissa Carrey for Sustainable Australia who is currently at the bottom on the score sheet with 856 votes.

Some 1804 votes were badged informal, which means they don’t count – at least they don’t in the initial count – because they have either been incorrectly completed or spoiled by voters.

State-wide, the Coalition has lost power and for the first time in 12 years, Labor under its leader Chris Minns will form government and on the numbers at the moment it looks like Labor will have a majority and so can govern in its own right.