The revelations at the Independent Commission Against Corruption have resulted in the Liberal Party losing a swag of Hunter Valley and Central Coast seats as disillusioned voters switched their allegiances back to the Labor Party.
At the last election in 2011, the Liberals won all five Central Coast seats in a record swing as voters rejected the scandal-plagued Labor government. Some seats were won by the Liberals for the first time, including Swansea and Wyong.
The seats were reclaimed by Labor on Saturday in an almost clean sweep, with only former Liberal energy minister Chris Hartcher's seat of Terrigal and potentially the seat of Gosford to be retained by the Liberals. Gosford, which was not involved in the ICAC inquiry, was still too close to call on Sunday.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption heard allegations last year that a number of Liberal MPs in Hunter Valley and Central Coast seats took illegal political donations from developers in the lead-up to the 2011 poll.
First term Liberal MPs Tim Owen and Andrew Cornwell quit parliament after admitting to taking banned donations from property developer and former mayor Jeff McCloy before the election. It triggered by-elections in October last year in their Hunter Valley seats of Newcastle and Charlestown, where Labor won the seats and held onto power in Saturday's poll.
The ICAC has not yet released its report in its inquiry into political donations, dubbed Operation Spicer, but the hearings resulted in 10 NSW Liberal MPs joining the cross bench pending the commission's findings.
Seven of those MPs, including Hartcher and his Central Coast proteges Chris Spence and Darren Webber, did not recontest their lower house seats. An eighth, Garry Edwards, contested Swansea as an independent.
The Liberals lost seven of those ICAC-affected seats to Labor on Saturday: The Entrance, Wyong, Port Stephens, Londonderry in western Sydney, Newcastle, Charlestown and Swansea. Mr Hartcher's former seat of Terrigal bucked the trend, with the Liberals hanging onto the seat with a new candidate, businessman Adam Crouch.
Mr McCloy is challenging the constitutional validity of the ban in NSW on political donations from property developers in the High Court. The court's ruling will affect the findings that can be made by the ICAC as the donations would not have been illegal if the ban is struck down.
SEAT BY SEAT
Terrigal - retained by the Liberals with new candidate Adam Crouch
The Entrance - won by Labor's David Mehan
Wyong - won by Labor's David Harris
Port Stephens - won by Labor's Kate Washington
Londonderry - won by Labor's Prue Car
Newcastle - won by Labor's Tim Crakanthorp
Charlestown - won by Labor's Jodie Harrison
Swansea - won by Labor's Yasmin Catley
