THE ACT’s Senate contest is still too close to call; as Liberal Zed Seselja and the Greens’ Simon Sheikh continue to battle it out for the second Senate seat.
Predictably, Labor’s Kate Lundy retained her position in the first seat, despite Labor’s primary vote falling 6.5 per cent.
At the close of counting by the Australian Electoral Commission on Sunday, Labor had 34.29 per cent, followed by the Liberal Party on 32.09 per cent and the Greens on 20.45 per cent.
Both Seselja and Sheikh believe their side will benefit from yet-to-be-counted pre-poll votes, which were cast in record numbers at this election.
Among the minor parties contesting the ACT Senate, the Sex Party received almost 6000 votes, the Palmer United Party had 3300 votes, the Voluntary Euthanasia Party had 2400 votes and the Animal Justice Party had 1800.
In the House of Representatives, Tony Abbott is Australia’s 28th Prime Minister as the Coalition claimed a historic victory on Saturday, while Kevin Rudd has stood aside as Labor leader.
The Australian Electoral Commission declared the Liberals won 91 lower house seats in the House of Representatives, Labor has 54 and the Greens have one.
The was a nationwide swing of just over 3 per cent against the ALP.
Despite Labor being swept from power nationally, locally the party retained both of the ACT’s House of Representative seats.
Sitting Labor member Dr Andrew Leigh retained his seat of Fraser over Liberals candidate Elizabeth Lee, with 62.9 per cent of the vote after preferences as of this morning, while current Labor member Gai Brodtmann retained her seat of Canberra over Liberal candidate Tom Sefton, with 57.1 per cent of the vote as of this morning.
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