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 the eve of the 2011 election, ABC radio reported that NSW Labor could be facing "the biggest loss in Australian political history", with the statewide swing predicted at between 16 and 18 points. Asked to define himself ideologically, O'Farrell told the ABC: I describe myself as a classic Liberal. You know, ascribe to those Liberal principles but like Menzies believe that the role of government is to apply the principles, the plans, the policies to an issue that suit the times. So Menzies used to say that it must be great being an ideologue because it saves time thinking. Menzies wanted to deliver real change, wanted to deliver real solutions and that's where I put myself. The Coalition were unbackable favourites to win the 2011 election; by the time the writs were dropped they had been ahead in opinion polling for almost three years. The final Newspoll saw a two-party-preferred figure of 64.1 percent for the Coalition and 35.9 percent for Labor. Opinion polls and commentators had almost universally written Labor off by the time the writs were dropped. Indeed, speculation centred on how large O'Farrell's majority would be, and whether Labor would hold onto enough seats to form a credible opposition. As a measure of how far Labor's stocks had fallen, the Coalition was threatening Labor in seats that the non-Labor side hadn't held in over a century, as well as seats where the Coalition had not been a serious threat since the Great Depression. As expected, O'Farrell went on to lead the Coalition to a comprehensive victory on a swing of over 16%, the highest for a general election in Australia since World War II. The Coalition won several seats in Labor's traditional west Sydney heartland, many of which had previously been safe for Labor; two of them, Smithfield and Campbelltown, fell to the Liberals on 20 percent swings. The Liberal Party