 This continued a longstanding trend of country voters in NSW rejecting the Nationals in favour of locally-based independents.Torbay was comfortably re-elected at the 2003 and 2007 general elections, each time taking over 70 percent of the primary and over 80 percent of the two-party vote.He accepted an offer by Premier Morris Iemma to become Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, a position usually filled by a member of the governing party.