Despite the apparent loss of 15 seats, the Coalition is expected to hold at least 51 seats of the 93 seats in the Lower House and could win 55, depending on the flow of preferences, some of which might not be known for some days.
Among the big upsets were the Nationals-held seat of Ballina going to the Greens, following a big swing over CSG and the poles and wires issue. That theme was repeated throughout the North Coast and Hunter, where the Nationals were also beaten.
The Greens want to halt clearing of the Leard State Forest, effectively halting the expansion of the open-cut Maules Creek coal mine owned by Whitehaven Coal.
Among other key policies the NSW Greens want to transition NSW to 100% renewable energy by 2030. No new coal fired power stations would be built. The cost of emissions would be factored into costs to improve the competitiveness of renewables.
The Greens gaining key seats means that it will tougher than expected for Baird to pass privatisation plan through the Upper House to fund up to $20 billion in infrastructure through NSW's poles and wires network privatisation.
But Baird feels that the Liberal Party has picked up one crucial Upper House seat and, possibly could convince Christian Democratic Party leader Rev Fred Nile to vote in favour of the privatisation.
Baird was also adamant that he would not consider privatising more than 49% of the state’s poles and wires.
The three crossbenchers who could decide 'poles and wires' privatisation
Three key crossbenchers - the Greens' John Kaye, Christian Democrat Fred Nile and the Fishers and Shooters' Robert Borsak - have each expressed scepticism about the plan, with two of them opposed outright.
In an interview with the ABC over the weekend, Kaye said the proposed sale was a "bad solution", and said future governments should look to invest more heavily in renewable energy.
"We've shown it's possible to raise $20 billion without relying on selling the wires and poles, simply by increasing taxes on property speculators making profits and on the very, super-profitable clubs," he told the ABC.
"We need to reconfigure the network, we need to create new opportunities for household-level renewable energy. We need to create new opportunities for trading energy across the grid between different renewable energy sources."
Borsak said the Coalition's policy would not be good for households and businesses.
"It's simply not the right thing to do, to hand away $100 billion worth of potential revenue for a $20 billion sugar hit now," he said. Borsak indicated no amount of attempted horse trading would change his mind.
Finally, Reverend Fred Nile said there was a lot of concern among his supporters about the policy and wants a Select Parliamentary Inquiry to examine the opposing claims about the impact of the sale.
He admitted he hoped such an investigation would find in the Coalition's favour and put people's "fears to rest".
"You could be optimistic and say the inquiry will confirm the government's position. I hope it does, because the government's infrastructure program is of tremendous benefit to this state. We need it," he said.
Nile added that if the sale went ahead, he would "want a number of conditions imposed, including a measure to protect employment."
