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Four years ago, as Labor campaign director, Luke Foley declared: "The heartland is gone." Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

As the reckoning began about Barry O'Farrell's whopping election victory four years ago, some senior Liberals dared to ask themselves a question: could this be an opportunity to rewrite the NSW electoral map forever?

The catalyst was the tsunami of Liberal blue that flooded seats in western Sydney the party had never before considered itself capable of holding.

The party still has a long way to go before it can be confident of preventing a third term for the Coalition.

In his victory speech O'Farrell nominated Campbelltown, just won by a former local policeman, Bryan Doyle, and Parramatta, won by Geoff Lee.

But there were plenty of others such as Penrith - where Stuart Ayres was returned after setting the stage by winning it in a byelection the previous June - as well as Mulgoa and Granville.

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On election night, a jubilant O'Farrell said the Liberals had "won tonight seats we never dreamed of winning". The victories in Campbelltown and Penrith, he declared, demonstrated that "we Liberals can represent anyone".

Meanwhile, a dejected Labor campaign spokesman Luke Foley declared of the result: "The heartland is gone."

The next day former premier Nick Greiner went so far as to tell Fairfax Media that O'Farrell had an unprecedented opportunity "to rework the electoral map in a permanent sense".

Read the original post:
Has Mike Baird given Sydney's west a permanent blue hue?