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David Leyonhjelm misses out on NSW Upper House seat

David Leyonhjelm, who quit as a senator to try to win a spot in the NSW upper house, has failed in his bid to move to state politics.

Final preferences for the 21-seat upper house were distributed on Monday afternoon – with Mr Leyonhjelm coming 23rd.

Mr Leyonhjelm had been so confident of securing a spot on the Legislative Council that he changed his Twitter profile to read “now NSW MLC for the Liberal Democrats”.

Shortly after the final preferences were distributed, he had to alter his bio again. Now it simply states he’s a “former senator”.

In fact, the last available MLC seat went to One Nation candidate Rod Roberts, a former detective from Goulburn. The second-last seat was won by Animal Justice Party candidate Emma Hurst.

Mr Roberts and Ms Hurst will join former federal Labor leader and NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham at Macquarie Street when parliament resumes in May.

One Nation will have two seats in the NSW upper house, joining a mixed bag of crossbenchers who now hold the balance of power in the state’s Legislative Council.

The Liberal-National coalition government won eight of the 21 upper house seats up for grabs in the March 23 election. Labor snared seven.

Monday’s results ended a three-way race between Christian Democrat MLC Paul Green, Mr Roberts and Mr Leyonhjelm for the final seats.

-with AAP

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