FORMER Labor minister and member for Monaro Steve Whan is holding his lead as the count for his old seat edges towards its end following Saturday’s NSW election.

Despite Nationals’ hopes that current counting of votes from Monaro’s early voting centres would favour sitting member Nichole Overall, as at 9.59am on Tuesday, the NSW Electoral Commission was reporting total first-preference votes standing at 15,742 (40.33 per cent) for Whan and 14,833 (38 per cent) for Overall.

On a two-party preferred tally, Whan holds 53.87 per cent to Overall’s 46.13 per cent.

The early voting count didn’t give Overall the anticipated lift with only seven votes separating them, Overall at 5688 and Whan, 5675. Initial counting of postal votes have Overall ahead with 665 votes to Whan’s 527.

Whan stepped into the election with only five weeks to go after former Raiders captain Terry Campese pulled out of the Labor spot in a media storm over a revealing party video.

If elected, Whan, a former NSW minister, would bring experience to an incoming Labor government after 12 years in opposition.

Overall won the seat a year ago after the mercurial NSW Nationals Leader and Deputy Premier John Barilaro suddenly resigned. Barilaro had an 11 per cent advantage at the last election in 2019.

Whan was elected as the member for Monaro at the 2003 state election.

At the 2011 state election, he was defeated by Barilaro. Less than three months later, Whan was appointed to the Legislative Council to fill a casual vacancy. In 2014 he was preselected as the Labor candidate for Monaro at the 2015 state election, but lost again to Barilaro.

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