Two weeks after New South Wales voters headed to the polls, the final seat in the state election has been called, with the Liberal party to hold the Sydney electorate of Ryde.
The ABC election analyst, Antony Green, called the seat for the Liberal candidate, Jordan Lane, on Saturday with a margin of just 50 votes as check counts of remaining postal votes were completed on Saturday.
The count had see-sawed between the Liberal and Labor candidates after it initially looked like Labor had snatched the seat when polls closed on 25 March.
The Liberals took a narrow lead in Ryde a week ago after the counting of postal votes. As of Thursday, only postal and absentee ballots were left to count in the seat, which had favoured the Liberal party 55% to Labor’s 45%.
The Labor candidate, Lyndal Howison, oversaw a major swing for her party of almost 9% in the formerly safe seat held by the retiring Liberal MP Victor Dominello.
Howison said on Saturday that new numbers from the Ryde count showed “an incredibly close result in this election, with a small lead for the Liberals”.
“It’s been a joy to meet and reconnect with so many hardworking and kind people in our electorate,” she wrote on social media. “Ryde is my home and regardless of the final result, I’ll always fight for what’s best for our community.
“Thank you to everyone who has sent messages of support and to the hundreds of people who helped out in the campaign.”
Earlier in the week Howison conceded that it was “not looking good for the Labor campaign” but would wait for further numbers “before we call it”.
A spokesperson for the NSW Electoral Commission confirmed that the initial count in Ryde was complete. Check counts of declaration votes were completed on Saturday.
Lane, the Liberal candidate, is a former mayor of the City of Ryde and has said he considered the retiring Dominello to be “a close friend and a mentor”.
Guardian Australia contacted Lane for comment.
Labor had already lost the chance to form a majority government in NSW, having won 45 seats, just shy of the 47-seat requirement.
In order to pass legislation, the premier, Chris Minns, will likely be forced to engage with the crossbench of nine independents and three Greens MPs.
The new Labor cabinet was officially sworn in earlier in the week, claiming it would get to work fixing schools and hospitals, as well as dealing with energy bill and cost-of-living pressures.
Excluding the premier, the 22-person cabinet is made up of 50% women for the first time in NSW history.
“I’m proud of the team we have,” Minns said on Wednesday. “We have a lot of hard work in front of us, and a big responsibility, but my team and I are up to the challenge.”
