NSW Liberals win final lower-house seat of Ryde two weeks after state election

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 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.

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.

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.