It’s approaching lunchtime so it’s time to do an update on the state of play of the undecided seats from Saturday’s election.
And let’s just say – nails will be nibbled down to the quick.
Myself and fellow seat caller, Matt Wade, have just gone through all the close electorates to see how far away we are from determining a winner.
The most high profile is the seat of Melbourne, where Greens’ leader Adam Bandt is in a lot of trouble.
With just over a third of the vote counted to the two-party preferred level, Labor’s Sarah Witty has a 1921 vote lead over Bandt.
A handful of undecided seats will go down to the wire. Credit: Getty Images
A key issue will be how Witty and Bandt perform in some Liberal-leaning booths in the seat’s east. If Bandt doesn’t make ground there, it’s all over.
Bandt has also suffered from a particularly poor performance on postal votes, of which almost 18,000 were issued to Melbourne voters.
Of the 10,000 postals that have been counted, Bandt is getting about 27 per cent support. Among the votes cast on Saturday, his primary vote was more than 42 per cent.
Across other seats, expect a drawn-out slugfest in electorates such as Bullwinkel in WA, Monash and Bendigo in Victoria, Bradfield in NSW, and Longman and Ryan in Queensland.
Kooyong, where teal independent Monique Ryan is fighting to survive, is also likely to take days before a winner is clear.