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Shooters, Fishers and Farmers claim historic victory in Orange by-election after re-count

Philip Donato is the first Shooters, Fishers and Farmers member in the NSW Lower House.

Philip Donato is the first Shooters, Fishers and Farmers member in the NSW Lower House. Photo: ABC

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party has won the NSW seat of Orange after the Nationals called for a re-count.

The Shooters’ candidate Philip Donato beat Scott Barrett, from the Nationals, by 50 votes.

His victory ended the Nationals’ 69-year stranglehold on the regional electorate.

It took more than a week of counting, and re-counting, preferences in the nail-biting race.

On Friday, after the final distribution of preferences, the Shooters had won by 55 votes, but the Nationals called for a re-count.

Seat changes hands after unprecedented swing

The Nationals had held the seat by more than 20 per cent before the by-election, held on Saturday November 19, but voters abandoned the party.

The Baird government’s proposed ban on greyhound racing – which it has since backed down on – and council amalgamations were seen as key issues that contributed to the massive swing against the Nationals, who say they will spend the next three years trying to reconnect with voters in the area.

Many locals were angry about plans for the councils of Cabonne and Blayney to amalgamate with Orange.

Radio kingpins Alan Jones and Ray Hadley – fierce critics of the greyhound ban – told listeners to put the Nationals last, and both hosts had been in Orange in the lead-up to the by-election.

The seat of Orange became vacant when former MP Andrew Gee resigned to run for Federal Parliament earlier this year.

The electorate had not changed hands since the end of World War II, and its margin was one of the state’s biggest.

While the result was unclear until Monday, the devastating swing against the Nationals prompted party leader and NSW’s then deputy premier Troy Grant to resign from his position last week.

The deputy party leader Adrian Piccoli also resigned. John Barilaro was elected leader, while Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair was chosen to be his deputy.

-ABC

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