Swan, Hasluck, Pearce and Tangney have fallen to Labor as Anthony Albanese is set to become Australia’s 31st prime minister.
UPDATE: Anthony Albanese appears set to lead Labor to victory tonight, as results from WA determine whether he will lead a minority or majority government.
Swan, Pearce and Hasluck all look set to fall to Labor as Curtin, which is being challenged by independent Kate Chaney, remains in doubt.
The mood at Ms Chaney's campaign event this evening is jubilant as supporters celebrate an array of formerly safe Liberal seats falling to 'teal' independents.
Speaking with Business News earlier, Ms Chaney declined to comment on the possibility of a win as early returns showed positive results for her campaign.
She did, however, argue something was shifting in Australian politics with Liberal MPs set to lose in Goldstein, Mackellar, North Sydney and Wentworth.
"When you see the Liberal Party shifting to the conservative right and the Labor Party retreating to small ideas, it has left this vaccum in the middle," she said.
"These sensible centre candidates around the country are popping up to represent the values of those electorates."
Counting continues.
Independents, Labor on track for win
Scott Morrison's chances of winning tonight's poll are dwindling as independents and Labor sweep up a host of key marginal seats throughout the eastern states.
ABC psephologist and election night staple Antony Green has cast doubt on the coalition’s chances tonight, saying earlier this evening there was no path for the coalition to form government in its own right.
He has since called Anthony Albanese as the winner and Australia's next prime minister.
That came after a swathe of safe Liberal seats, including Mackellar, Goldstein and North Sydney, were projected by major networks to have fallen to independent challengers.
Labor appears to have won a handful of key marginal seats, including Reid in NSW and Chisolm in Victoria, despite Liberals showing a strong challenge in Bass and Braddon, in Tasmania.
Counting continues, with results yet to be declared in the key WA seats of Curtin, Swan, Pearce and Hasluck.
Stick with Business News as results roll in across the country.
Counting starts as Australia decides
Voters have flocked to the polls on election day as they weigh in on three years of pandemic restrictions, ministerial scandals and mixed economic indicators.
Scott Morrison won the 2019 election, defying pundits and polls which failed to predict the scope of support for the incumbent prime minister.
Anthony Albanese rose to the opposition’s top job that same year, tasked with leading a demoralised Labor Party out of the wilderness.
Several independents have built a head of steam in early tallies tonight, with Liberal MPs suffering significant swings in the seats of Wentworth, Kooyong and Goldstein.
Longer counts may temper expectations of a win, though, with a high number of postal and pre-poll votes still to be factored into results.
Elsewhere in the country, counting is simply too early for major networks to project a result, leaving a swathe of marginal seats in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in doubt.
Labor had enjoyed about a year of significant polling leads that narrowed over the final week of the campaign.
In one state, a possible swing has already failed to materialise, with Tasmania lending a friendly few seats to the coalition’s chances.
Major networks including the ABC have projected Bass and Braddon will stay with the coalition within an hour of that state's polls closing.
Those seats have developed a reputation for swinging between both major parties in recent elections, and both seats were claimed by the Liberals in 2019.
Bridget Archer, the first-term MP for Bass, had developed a national reputation after breaking with the federal government over its Religious Discrimination Bill.
Labor’s poor standing at a state level may also have worsened the party’s federal chances, with the loss of a seat in the state’s upper house earlier this month possibly portending tonight’s result.
That those two seats didn’t swing back is potentially an early sign of danger for Labor across the rest of Australia.
As voting continues, stick with Business News to read the latest on how the 2022 election is unfolding.
