1.
New South Wales Legislative Assembly
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The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council, both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney. The Assembly is presided over by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the Assembly has 93 members, elected by single-member constituency, which are commonly known as seats. Voting is by the preferential system. Members of the Legislative Assembly have the initialism MP after their names, from the creation of the assembly up to about 1990, the initialism MLA was used. The Legislative Assembly was created in 1856 with the introduction of a parliament for the Crown Colony of New South Wales. In the beginning, only men were eligible to be members of the Assembly, following Australias federation in 1901, the New South Wales parliament became a State legislature. Women were granted the right to vote in 1902, and gained the right to be members of the Assembly in 1918, the Legislative Assembly sits in the oldest legislative chamber in Australia. Originally built for the Legislative Council in 1843, it has been in use since 1856. The colour of the Legislative Assembly chamber is green, which follows the British tradition for lower houses, most legislation is initiated in the Legislative Assembly. The party or coalition with a majority of seats in the house is invited by the Governor to form government. The leader of that party subsequently becomes Premier of New South Wales, as Australian political parties traditionally vote along party lines, most legislation introduced by the governing party will pass through the Legislative Assembly. As with the parliament and other Australian states and territories. Elections are held four years on the fourth Saturday in March, exceptional circumstances notwithstanding. 47 votes as a majority are required to pass legislation, the clerk of the house of the NSW Legislative Assembly is the senior administrative officer. The clerk advises the speaker of the Assembly and members of parliament on matters of parliamentary procedure, the office is modelled on the clerk of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The serjeant has the authority to remove disorderly people, by force if necessary, once a meeting has started in an Assembly, the serjeant will usually stand at the door to keep authority and make sure no one else comes in or out
2.
New South Wales state election, 2015
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A general election for the 56th Parliament of New South Wales was held on Saturday 28 March 2015. Members were elected to all 93 seats in the Legislative Assembly using optional preferential voting, Members were also elected to 21 of the 42 seats in the Legislative Council using optional preferential proportional representation voting. The election was conducted by the New South Wales Electoral Commission, the main Opposition Labor Party under Luke Foley won an increased share of the vote in most districts, though the party lost ground in some key races, including Foleys seat of Auburn. It managed to take 14 seats off the Coalition, mostly in areas of Labor heartland lost to the Liberals during the landslide in 2011, most notably, Labor regained seats in west Sydney, the Central Coast and the lower Hunter. Baird had campaigned on a plan to lease 49 per cent of the state-owned electricity distribution network in order to deliver an ambitious transport. Although the poles-and-wires proposal was received in opinion polls, Baird himself was widely liked by the electorate. Candidate nominations closed on 12 March and early voting began on the 16th, eleven seats won by the Liberals and Nationals in 2011 went to other parties in 2015. Incumbent Liberal MPs were defeated by Labor challengers in Blue Mountains, Campbelltown, Granville, Rockdale, incumbents Don Page and Robyn Parker retired, with the Greens taking Pages seat of Ballina and Labor taking Parkers seat of Maitland. Londonderry, Port Stephens and Wyong, whose Liberal incumbents had been sitting as independents since 2013 and retired in 2015, former Liberal Edwards, in Swansea, re-contested the seat as an independent but lost to Labor challenger Yasmin Catley. Miranda Labor MP Collier had retired at the 2011 election, with the Liberals Annesley picking up the seat on a swing of nearly 22 points. When Annesley quit politics in 2013, Collier returned to contest the by-election, Collier decided not to re-contest the seat in 2015, and the Liberals Eleni Petinos took it with 63 per cent of the primary vote. Northern Tablelands, won by an independent in 2011 and lost to the Nationals in 2013, was retained by the Nationals, Charlestown and Newcastle, won by the Liberals in 2011 and lost to Labor at by-elections in 2014, were retained by Labor. Following the 2013 redistribution the ABC recalculated the 2011 election results based on the new boundaries and these calculations deemed Macquarie Fields, a Labor marginal, notionally Liberal. The new seat of Prospect, which replaced Liberal-held Smithfield, was also considered notionally Liberal, in Macquarie Fields, incumbent Labor MP Andrew McDonald did not re-contest and Labor candidate Anoulack Chanthivong defeated Liberal Pat Farmer. In Prospect, the sitting Smithfield MP, Andrew Rohan, was defeated by Labor candidate Hugh McDermott, Labor governed NSW from 1995 until 2011. Over the course of its last two terms, a succession of changes, criminal convictions, corruption scandals and cancelled infrastructure projects began to eat away at Labors support base. In a harbinger of things to come, the previously safe Labor seats of Ryde, in March 2011, the Liberals and Nationals, led by the Liberals Barry OFarrell, won one of the most comprehensive state-level victories since Federation, taking 69 seats in the Legislative Assembly. In 2013, the Nationals won a by-election in Northern Tablelands after independent MP Richard Torbay resigned over corruption allegations, the win in Northern Tablelands represented the high point for the Government party room
3.
Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch)
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The Australian Labor Party also known as NSW Labor is the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party. The parliamentary leader is elected from and by the members of the party caucus, comprising all party members in the Legislative Assembly, the party factions have a strong influence on the election of the leader. The leaders position is dependent on the support of the caucus. By convention, the premier sits in the Legislative Assembly, and is the leader of the party controlling a majority in that house, the party leader also typically is a member of the Assembly, though this is not a strict party constitutional requirement. Barrie Unsworth, for example, was elected party leader while a member of the Legislative Council and he then transferred to the Assembly by winning a seat at a by-election. When the Labor party wins sufficient seats to be able to control a majority in the Legislative Assembly, when the party is not in government, the party leader becomes the Leader of the Opposition. To become a Premier or Opposition Leader, the party leader must be or within a period of time become a member of the Legislative Assembly. Cook left the party in the year when he was obliged to sign a pledge that he would support all caucus decisions in parliament. James McGowen, who signed the pledge, succeeded Cook as party leader in 1894, at the 1894 state election Labor representation was reduced to 18. After the 1898 election, Labor held the balance of power with George Reids Protectionist Government being dependent on Labor to push through New South Wales adoption of Federation. At the 1910 election the Labor Party first won government in New South Wales with a majority of 46 of 90 seats. He was deposed by his deputy William Holman after McGowen attempted to break a gas workers strike by threatening to replace strikers with non-union labour, the conscription issue divided the Labor Party and wider Australian community in 1916. Ernest Durack became state party leader, while Holman formed a coalition on 15 November 1916 with the leader of the opposition Liberal Reform Party, Charles Wade, with himself as Premier. Early in 1917, Holman and his supporters merged with Liberal Reform to form the state branch of the Nationalist Party of Australia, at the 1917 election, the Nationalists won a huge victory. During his leadership of the Nationalist Government, Holman vigorously defended the government-owned enterprises from his fellow conservatives in power, duracks leadership lasted only for about three months, and he was succeeded by John Storey in February 1917. At the 1920 election, Holman and his Nationalists were thrown from office in a swing, being succeeded by a Labor Government led by Storey. Labor won the 1920 election with a majority of one, on Storeys death in October 1921, James Dooley became leader of the party and premier. His government was defeated on the floor of the House on 13 December 1921, but new Premier George Fuller lost a vote within seven hours of his appointment and he lost the 1922 election to Fuller in a highly sectarian election campaign
4.
Greg Aplin
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Gregory John Greg Aplin MP, an Australian politician, is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Albury for the Liberal Party of Australia since 2003. Aplin was born in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, on 9 October 1952 and he studied at the University of Cape Town, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours. He returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was given a three years posting to Sydney, in 1980 he then returned to the newly independent Zimbabwe to work for the government in regional development, and arranging state visits. Greg Aplin has been married to his wife Jill since 1975, Aplin is a Rotarian and has been awarded a Paul Harris Fellowship, given to members who donate US$1,000 to Rotary International. Aplin moved to Australia in 1981 and began working in television and he worked in Wollongong, Orange, and Albury, where he became station manager of Prime Television AMV-4, a post he held for 13 years. He won a Logie Award as the Executive Producer of a television programme, in 2001, when Australias regional television stations were centralising, he became the administration manager for the University of New South Wales School of Rural Health in Albury and Wagga Wagga. A year later he became a researcher and media adviser for Member for Farrer, when Ian Glachan announced his retirement, Aplin was preselected as the Liberal Partys candidate for the seat in the 2003 state election. He received more than 16,826 first preference votes, out polling the nearest candidate, Albury City Councillor and Independent candidate, Clare Douglas, who received 8,595 first preference votes. Another two Albury City councillors polled third and fourth, with Olympian Rob Ballard receiving 5,267 votes and he was appointed to the Public Accounts Committee in October 2005. In March 2006, Peter Debnam promoted Aplin to the Opposition front bench as the Shadow Minister for Housing, Aplin was re-elected at the 2007 and 2011 general elections. Prior to the 2011 general election, Aplin held the portfolio of Mental Health. However, Aplin was not selected to join the OFarrell ministry, New South Wales Parliament – Mr Gregory John APLIN, BA MP Liberal Party of Australia NSW Division – Legislative Assembly – Profile, Greg Aplin NSW Young Liberals Profile
