The Liberals have won the Western Australian seat of Hasluck, according to ABC election analyst Antony Green.

That would put the focus on the Victorian seat of Corangamite and Brisbane, with the likeliest outcome giving 72 seats each to the ALP and Coalition - and the balance of power in the hands of four independent MPs and a Green.

The ABC this afternoon reported analyst Green had called Hasluck for the Liberals, putting the Coalition ahead of Labor by one seat.

That would make Liberal candidate Ken Wyatt the first indigenous person in the House of Representatives.

A spokesman for Labor incumbent Sharryn Jackson said she would wait for the Australian Electoral Commission to announce seat's winner before speaking to the media.

"Antony's election calculator is a wonderful, wonderful thing but we're just going to let the AEC continue counting up the votes," the spokesman said.

Mr Wyatt's spokesman said he would refrain from commenting until the AEC calls the seat or Ms Jackson conceded defeat.

"It's very much down the line and we're waiting for some more postals and absentee votes so we're not going to comment on the vote until the count is finalised," he said.

Currently Ms Jackson is struggling to rein in Mr Wyatt, who has a lead of 817 votes, with 87 per cent of the vote counted.

AEC operations manager Brendon Barlow said counters were dealing with 3800 fresh postal votes today.

"There's a swing of 1.38 per cent on at the moment," Mr Barlow said.

"There's about 6000 votes left to count but out of that 6000 a lot of those need further investigation, some may have to be rejected."

But the trend for absentee, pre-poll and postal votes is not running Labor's way.

Meanwhile the Coalition has pulled ahead in two other crucial seats as painstaking vote counting continues.

But the party lost ground in Corangamite, where the Liberals' Sarah Henderson is trying to claw back a Labor lead of several hundred votes.

The final election result appears to be coming down to seats on opposite sides of the country.

The Labor seat of Brisbane could be decided by a couple of hundred votes either way, even though the Liberals' Therese Gamboro increased her lead over sitting MP Arch Bevis on Thursday.

Ms Gamboro has a lead of 684 votes with nearly 78 per cent of the vote counted.

But an AAP analysis of the count, in which 10,500 votes have yet to be counted, shows the race will go down to the wire.

Ms Gamboro is picking up a good percentage of the postal votes, but about 2300 pre-poll votes may go the way of Mr Bevis if they maintain the trend of the 2745 counted so far.

As well 5500 absent votes - running Labor's way 53-47 per cent - remain to be counted.

Earlier today, Liberal Andrew Southcott thanked voters in the Adelaide seat of Boothby after taking what appears to be an unbeatable lead.

"It is now apparent that I will be elected for the sixth time," Dr Southcott said.

Dr Southcott was 1372 votes ahead of ALP rival Annabel Digance, according to figures on the Australian Electoral Commission at yesterday's close.

Dr Southcott says his team tells him the lead has since increased.

Boothby is a marginal electorate in Adelaide where Julia Gillard went to school.

In Corangamite, sitting Labor MP Darren Cheesman leads Ms Henderson by 724 votes with 86 per cent of the vote counted.

Whichever party wins Brisbane looks certain to take a one-seat advantage over the other into the new parliament.

If Labor holds Corangamite and the coalition wins Hasluck both sides will have 72 seats each.

There will be four independents and one Australian Greens MP.


http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/liberals-have-won-hasluck-20100826-13t...