Labor has claimed victory in the seat of Gosford on the New South Wales central coast and the Liberals have held the seats of Manly and North Shore in state byelections dominated by anti-government swings.

Gosford, along with the two northern Sydney seats, held byelections on Saturday to replace outgoing local MPs, including the former premier Mike Baird and former health minister Jillian Skinner, who held the North Shore seat for 23 years.

It was the first electoral test for the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, after three months in the job.

Labor said Liesl Tesch, a former Paralympian, won a majority of first-preference votes in the state’s most marginal electorate, with swings of more than 10% against the governing Liberal party.



“I will do all in my power to keep the government accountable for the decisions they make that affect the lives of people on the central coast,” Tesch, who is a teacher, said in a statement.

Labor won Gosford in the last election by just a few votes, but increased its majority in the vote triggered by the resignation of Kathy Smith due to ill health.

Late on Saturday evening Liberal candidates James Griffin and Felicity Wilson declared victory in Manly and North Shore, securing 43% and 42% of the first-preference vote respectively.

However the government suffered significant swings against it – almost 25% in Manly and 16% in the North Shore.

The Labor leader, Luke Foley, said the result showed an emphatic rejection of Coalition policies including council mergers and the “gutting” of Tafe.



But defence minister Marise Payne, who is a Liberal party senator for NSW, told ABC News 24 on Sunday that midterm byelections were “difficult for any government, no matter where it is and who they are”.

“But the outcome is that all three seats have remained in the same hands, one in the opposition’s hands, two in the hands of the Coalition government.”

She added that Berejiklian had “been doing a lot of listening over the last four weeks”.

Berejiklian’s first campaign stop on Saturday was with Wilson, as booths opened in Wollstonecraft. Long held by the Liberals, the seat was at risk of falling to an independent because of anger over the state government’s controversial council mergers policy.



Wilson also came under scrutiny this week for making misleading statements about how long she had lived in the area.



Anti-merger Mosman councillor Carolyn Corrigan was Wilson’s main rival among four other candidates vying for the seat.



The premier made a commitment to build a tunnel that would bypass the gridlocked Spit bridge, which links the city to its northern beaches.



Further north, Baird handed out how-to-vote cards for the Liberal candidate, James Griffin, outside polling booths in the seat of Manly.

With Australian Associated Press