Barry O'Farrell - Leader of The Opposition

Leader of The Opposition

After the Liberals were defeated in the March 2007 state election, O'Farrell announced his intention to challenge Debnam for party leadership, and on 4 April 2007, O'Farrell was elected unopposed as New South Wales Liberal Leader, with Jillian Skinner becoming Deputy Leader. He later appointed himself Shadow Minister for Western Sydney.

In May 2008, following the resignation of three senior party figures, it was revealed that O'Farrell had brokered a package of reforms designed to overcome factional infighting which had plagued the NSW Liberals for years. The reforms were endorsed at a State Council meeting on 31 May. Despite the risks involved, O'Farrell's role in the reform process was seen to have enhanced his leadership. In June 2008, Newspoll reported that O'Farrell led Morris Iemma in the preferred premier stakes – the first time any NSW Opposition Leader had led an incumbent Premier since May 1992.

In 2008, the O'Farrell lead successful by-election campaigns in Lakemba, Ryde, and Cabramatta where the Coalition recorded the largest by-election swing against Labor in its history. The Liberals achieved a swing of 22.7% in Cabramatta and 13% in Lakemba. Ryde, once a safe Labor seat, was won by O'Farrell's Liberals, with a swing of 23.1%.

On 2 September 2009, in the wake of Health Minister John Della Bosca's resignation following an affair, O'Farrell introduced a Motion of no confidence on the Premier Nathan Rees and the NSW Government. O'Farrell was hoping to push an early election saying that "The job of changing New South Wales for the better needs to start today. The best thing that Nathan Rees could do is to allow the people to have their say through an early election". The motion was put to the house but defeated on party lines. Despite this, all independent members of the Legislative Assembly voted for the motion.

O'Farrell's fortunes rose in June 2010, when the Liberal Party candidate, Stuart Ayres, won the Penrith by-election with a swing of 25%. The by-election was caused by the resignation of Karyn Paluzzano after she admitted to lying to the ICAC about abusing her parliamentary expenses. O'Farrell stated that "What we've seen this evening is the Liberal Party win its first seat in Western Sydney in 20 years...It demonstrates once and for all that Labor does not have a lock on Western Sydney".

In August 2010, independent MP and Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore introduced the Adoption Amendment (Same Sex Couples) Bill as a private member's bill, which, among other things, had the purpose of giving same-sex couples the right to adopt as a couple instead of as individuals. Both O'Farrell and Premier Kristina Keneally allowed a conscience vote on the bill. While initially reluctant to express his opinion, for fear of influencing the votes of his colleagues, during the parliamentary debate O'Farrell supported the reforms: "I support this measure today ... for the sake of children but also because I don't believe our society should exclude because of gender, sexuality, faith, background or some other factor, people who have a contribution they can make...That's not the free and confident society I seek." The bill was subsequently passed by the Legislative Assembly by 46 votes to 44.

In late 2010, following the government announcement of the sale of NSW's electricity assets, O'Farrell called for a judicial inquiry into the matter. After rejecting a judicial inquiry, Premier Kristina Keneally shut down or 'prorogued' Parliament early to try to stop a parliamentary inquiry announced by O'Farrell. O'Farrell maintained pressure on the issue over the Christmas/New Year period arguing the public had a right to know whether fair price had been achieved, why eight directors had resigned over the sale and what impact the sale would have on power bills. On 6 January, Keneally bowed to pressure and agreed to attend an inquiry she had earlier called "unconstitutional". On 1 February 2011, O'Farrell became the fourth longest-serving Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party, after Sir Robert Askin, Nick Greiner and Sir Vernon Treatt.

On the eve of the 2011 election, ABC radio reported that NSW Labor could be facing "the biggest loss in Australian political history", with the state-wide swing predicted at between 16 and 18 per cent. Asked to define himself ideologically O'Farrell told the ABC:

During the campaign in the lead-up to the 26 March 2011 election, O'Farrell focused on the policies of health, planning, government expenditure and longevity as well as the reputation and the ability of the incumbent Labor government to deliver. Polling indicated a large Coalition victory. The final Newspoll saw a two-party-preferred figure of 64.1 percent for the Coalition and 35.9 percent for the Labor Party. O'Farrell went on to lead the Coalition to win the election with a swing of over 16%, the highest for a general election in Australia since World War II. The Coalition managed to take many seats in Labor's traditional west Sydney heartland, in some cases with as much as a 20 percent swing. The Liberal Party achieved an overall gain of 27 seats, while the National Party gained 5 seats, thereby achieving an overall majority in the Legislative Assembly of 45 seats. In his own seat of Ku-ring-gai, already considered an ultra-safe Liberal seat, O'Farrell achieved 72.7% of the primary vote, 87% after preferences, for an overall majority of 37%, making his own seat the safest in the state. The Liberals actually won a majority in their own right (51 seats), but the Coalition was retained.