David Pocock and Liberal senator Zed Seselja are around 2000 votes apart in early ACT Senate vote counting, pointing to a potential historic upset and a changing of the guard in the representation for national capital.
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Without Senator Seselja in the Parliament, there would be no Coalition representation at all for the territory.
Rugby great and Climate 200-backed independent, Mr Pocock, had received 22.08 per cent of primary votes, just 1786 votes behind of the Liberal ticket on 23.41 per cent of primary votes with 43 per cent of ballots counted at 11pm.
The Labor vote was firmly in front with 33.2 per cent of the primary vote count, ensuring Senator Katy Gallagher will be returned for another three-year term, as territory senators do not serve six-year terms like those representing Australia's states.
The Greens had 10.5 per cent of the primary vote late on Saturday night, a decline of more than 7 per cent on their 2019 result.
Professor Kim Rubenstein, who also ran as an independent with Climate 200 funding, will be the first major candidate to be knocked out, having just 4.5 per cent of the primary vote.
Mr Pocock, who was celebrating at QT Hotel in Canberra, said the rise of independents had made people reconsider the role of politics and what voters wanted for the ACT.
"Today has been a monumental day in Australian politics," Mr Pocock said of the national rise of independents.
"The preliminary results here in the ACT are very encouraging. Our campaign set out make politics about people again, talking about the issues that matter to us and ensuing the ACT isn't taken for granted.
"We've already seen more focus on Canberra from the major parties and built a movement of people who want to see politics done better."
The Liberal campaign in the ACT kicked out journalists covering their election night function before Zed Seselja arrived.
Only first preferences are counted on election night. It could be days or weeks before the final winner of the second Senate seat is known once preference flows are calculated.
In the House of Representatives, Labor's three sitting MPs Andrew Leigh in Fenner, Alicia Payne in Canberra and David Smith in Bean will all be returned comfortably.
Labor loyalists spent election night at the Labor Club in Belconnen, erupting in cheer after it became clear the party was looking like it would be able to form government.
Alicia Payne, Andrew Leigh and David Smith were all able to increase their votes in Canberra's three lower house seats which are all held by Labor.
"It's pretty clear that Canberrans are concerned about integrity in government," Mr Smith said.
Dr Leigh said Labor were effective in communicating its policies particularly on addressing the cost of living, while Ms Payne told ACM that the ACT would be stronger with a Labor government and Senator Gallagher as the nation's finance minister.
Mr Pocock at his election party held at Canberra's QT Hotel said the rise of independents had made people reconsider the role of politics and what voters want for their jurisdiction.
"I think there is that realisation that, independents can actually provide a voice for communities on issues that are important to us," he said.
Mr Pocock used his last day of campaigning to condemn robocalls made by Advance Australia which circulated media outlets including the The Canberra Times were biased and favoured the independent candidate.
A key focus of Mr Pocock's campaign has been based on unseating Mr Seselja from the Senate, with both men crossing paths at the beginning of polling day.
On Friday night Advance Australia circulated robocalls across the ACT, polling if people thought The Canberra Times was biased.
Earlier in the campaign, ACM investigated the origin of Advance Australia and found they had strong links to the Coalition and Senator Seselja.
Former Liberal MLA for Ginninderra Vicki Dunne, who joined hard right group Advance Australia as one of their directors in March 2022, was spotted at Miles Franklin Primary School wearing a Liberal party vest.
It was later confirmed by volunteers that the Advance Australia director had been campaigning for the Liberal Party. Mr Pocock said the Liberals and Advance Australia had injected a "fear-mongering" campaign within the ACT.
"It's more of the stuff that we're so sick of in politics, the fear-mongering, the negative attacks, attacking The Canberra Times on election eve, just such poor form," Mr Pocock said. "It's essentially attack ads disguised as a survey and most people want better, we expect better and it's really disappointing to see but not surprising given the political behaviour we've seen during our campaign."
Mr Seselja admitted the increase in independent candidates was something he was "sure [would] have an impact" and when asked if he thought he would win the Senate race he remained unsure.
"I hope so but I'm not going to make any predictions," he said.
Ms Dunne had joined Advance Australia just nine days after she allegedly cut ties with the Canberra Liberal branch.