Labor died in western Sydney tonight

I find general elections truly fascinating. Funny thing is, I have never been able to get my rocks off on by-elections: to me, they can be as interesting as checking the pressure in one's tires.

The Penrith by-election was held today, and, as predicted, the Labor Party got an absolute thrashing.

What was interesting with this one was not the result (which everyone predicted), but the scale and consistency of the swings against Labor.

ABC election analyst Antony Green, a paragon of caution early in the evening, ended up speechless:

20:56 - I'm running out of things to say. I have never seen a table of swings like the one I've published on the results page. This result is unprecedented.

Here is the table he's talking about (data courtesy http://www.abc.net.au/elections/nsw/2010/penrith/result.htm). You will notice that after preferences, every single booth recorded a swing against Labor of more than 20 percent.