The overall federal election result was decisive, but nine seats across the nation remain too close to call as vote margins in some high-profile electoral battles narrow to double digits, report Millie Muroi, Matt Wade and Olivia Ireland.
Two contests between Liberal and teal independents – in Sydney’s Bradfield and Melbourne’s Kooyong – were on a knife’s edge and gave the Coalition faint hope of maintaining a presence in metropolitan areas.
Voters queue at Clovelly Surf Lifesaving Club in Sydney.Credit: Kate Geraghty
The nine undecided seats are Bean, Bradfield, Calwell, Fisher, Flinders, Kooyong, Longman, Monash and Ryan. Read the detail on each seat here.
In some seats, the progress of the count has been slowed because the two candidates receiving the most first-preference votes turned out to be different to what the Australian Electoral Commission expected before the election. These are called “two-candidate preferred exceptions”.
When this becomes apparent, the count is stopped and the two-candidate preferred tally starts afresh with the correct top two candidates in a seat. The mandatory secondary count, called “fresh scrutiny” by the AEC, kicked off on Tuesday.
We’ll keep updating here in real time as each seat is called – and let you know which seats changed hands across Australia.