SYDNEY—NSW Premier Nathan Rees must accept as much of the blame for Labor's by-election results as the previous Iemma administration, the state opposition says.
Swings of more than 20 per cent against the Government in two of yesterday's by-elections handed the Liberal Party the north-western Sydney seat of Ryde and eroded Labor's comfortable margin in the south-western seat of Cabramatta.
Labor also suffered a double-digit swing against it in the seat of Lakemba, previously held by former Premier Morris Iemma and what was, until yesterday, Labor's safest seat in NSW.
Mr Rees has insisted his six weeks in the top job has not been enough time for him to turn around the public's poor perception of NSW Labor.
Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said yesterday's results were as much about Mr Rees as they were about his predecessors Bob Carr and Morris Iemma.
He said voters were unhappy that Mr Rees had kept the likes of Joe Tripodi and Eric Roozendaal in senior positions within his government.
"Mr Rees must stop the denial that yesterday's result was as much about his performance over the last year weeks as it was about the Labor Party over the last 13 and a half years," Mr O'Farrell told reporters at a barbecue for new Liberal MP for Ryde Victor Dominello.
"Families across this city are hurting, families are doing it tough, they are having to pull in their belts and they see a government that is not doing the same thing, it's wasting their money."
Mr O'Farrell said if swings like those seen on the weekend were repeated at the 2011 poll it would see Labor "decimated and Mr Rees looking for another job".
"But, there is two and half years till the next election," he said.
The only downside for the coalition in yesterday's four by-elections was the failure of the Nationals candidate Leslie Williams to secure the mid-north coast seat of Port Macquarie.
Independent candidate Peter Besseling, a staffer for the former MP Rob Oakeshott, has claimed the seat.
Mr O'Farrell said the coalition would have to look at the results in Port Macquarie but would not be drawn on whether the Liberals should run in the seat in 2011.
