With the federal election just around the corner, Anthony Albanese’s Labor government currently holds 78 seats in the House of Representatives, while the Coalition has 55 and 16 are in the hands of the minor parties and independents.
Many of those, though, sit on a knife’s edge. Of the 150 electorates that will be contested on May 3, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) lists 51 as being marginal – that is, currently held on a margin of less than 6 per cent.
These are the 10 closest ones, which will be crucial in deciding who forms government in a matter of days.
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Keep in mind these margins reflect how people voted in 2022, and take into account the redistribution (new boundaries) of seats.
They’re not representative of current polls, or how people are necessarily going to vote this year, but more an indicator of the seats that, theoretically, have the most potential to change hands.
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Deakin (Victoria)
Currently held by: Liberal Party, Michael Sukkar
Margin: 0.02 per cent
Michael Sukkar holds a handful of shadow portfolios on the Coalition front bench, but he also has the unenviable task of holding the closest seat in the nation.
He won Deakin in 2022 by just 375 votes, despite a 4.5 per cent swing to Labor, and his margin has narrowed even further to 0.02 per cent thanks to the redistribution of the seat.
Lawyer Matt Gregg, who almost won the seat off Sukkar in 2022, has been chosen by Labor to contest it again this year.
Bennelong (NSW)
Currently held by: Labor Party, Jerome Laxale
Margin: 0.04 per cent (notionally Liberal)
Bennelong has long been a Liberal stronghold, having been held by the party for all but six years since 1949, including for more than three decades by former prime minister John Howard.
Jerome Laxale was just the second Labor MP ever to win the seat, following in the footsteps of Maxine McKew, but faces a challenge to retain it.
While he won by just under 1 per cent in 2022, the abolition of North Sydney has significantly changed Bennelong’s boundaries, meaning it’s notionally a Liberal seat, albeit on a paltry 0.04 per cent margin.
Scott Yung won preselection to be the Liberal candidate for the seat this year.
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Gilmore (NSW)
Currently held by: Labor Party, Fiona Phillips
Margin: 0.17 per cent
Gilmore was the tightest race in the entire 2022 election, when Fiona Phillips retained the NSW South Coast seat with just 373 more votes than Liberal Andrew Constance.
Constance, a former NSW state minister who gained a particularly high profile in the region for his response to the Black Summer bushfires, will contest the electorate once again.
Menzies (Victoria)
Currently held by: Liberal Party, Keith Wolahan
Margin: 0.42 per cent (notionally Labor)
This was another close contest in 2022, when Keith Wolahan pipped Labor’s Naomi Oakley.
Redistribution has made Menzies even more winnable for the government, with the Victorian seat now listed as notionally Labor by the AEC.
Lawyer and former public servant Gabriel Ng has been named to contest the seat for Labor.
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Sturt (South Australia)
Currently held by: Liberal Party, James Stevens
Margin: 0.45 per cent
James Stevens won this once-safe Liberal seat by a razor-thin margin in 2022. While it has been held by the Coalition since 1972, only 1016 votes stood between Stevens and Labor’s Sonja Baram.
This time, local councillor and lawyer Claire Clutterham has been chosen to contest the seat for the ALP.
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Wentworth (NSW)
Currently held by: Independent, Allegra Spender
Margin: 0.58 per cent
Wentworth is a bit of an odd addition to this list, all things considered. Teal independent Allegra Spender won it quite comfortably in 2022, with a 4.2 per cent margin.
Calculating that margin after redistribution is tricky because its neighbouring seats – Kingsford-Smith and Sydney – didn’t have a leading independent candidate at the last election.
That’s why there’s a big disparity in estimates of what Spender’s margin actually is.
While the AEC has it down to just 0.58 per cent, leading election analysts Ben Raue, William Bowe and Antony Green believe it has actually grown to between 5.8 and 9 per cent – so listing it as one of the most marginal seats is probably a bit of a misnomer.
That said, the Liberals still consider themselves a genuine chance of winning it back. Ro Knox is the party’s candidate.
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Moore (Western Australia)
Currently held by: Liberal Party, Ian Goodenough
Margin: 0.91 per cent
Moore was a rare piece of good news for the Liberals in 2022 – it was the only seat in metropolitan Perth that the party won.
Now, it’s looming as a headache for the Coalition, and not just because of the sub-1 per cent margin.
Sitting MP Ian Goodenough lost his preselection bid to recontest the seat for the Liberals, with former federal MP Vince Connelly instead being picked by the party.
But Goodenough has committed to run as an independent, and has flagged directing preferences to Labor ahead of Connelly, potentially denting the Coalition’s chances of retaining the crucial Western Australian seat.
Labor’s candidate is electrician and lawyer Tom French.
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Lyons (Tasmania)
Currently held by: Labor Party, Brian Mitchell
Margin: 0.92 per cent
Brian Mitchell has held Tasmania’s largest electorate for three terms for Labor, but is standing aside this year to allow former state opposition leader Rebecca White, considered something of a rising star in the party, to contest Lyons.
Susie Bower, who lost to Mitchell by just 1344 votes in 2022, will once again be the Liberal candidate.
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Canning (Western Australia)
Currently held by: Liberal Party, Andrew Hastie
Margin: 1.2 per cent
Western Australia is looming as a key battleground in this year’s election, and Canning is the seat with the second-tightest margin in the state, sitting at 1.2 per cent.
That’s due largely to redistribution – Coalition frontbencher Andrew Hastie won it with a more comfortable 3.59 per cent margin in 2022, and it would be a surprise if one of the opposition’s more prominent frontbenchers (Hastie is the shadow defence minister) lost his seat.
Prosecutor Jarrad Goold is Labor’s candidate.
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Curtin (Western Australia)
Currently held by: Independent, Kate Chaney
Margin: 1.32 per cent
Of all the seats the teal independents won off the Liberal Party in 2022, Curtin is considered the most likely to fall back to the Coalition this time around.
Kate Chaney won the blue ribbon electorate – which is home to some of Perth’s (and Australia’s) wealthiest citizens, including Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest – in a major upset in the last election.
It’s a little odd to see the Chaney name running against the Liberals, given her family’s history. Uncle Fred was a minister in Malcolm Fraser’s government, and grandfather Sir Frederick was the navy minister under Robert Menzies before later becoming Perth lord mayor.
However, the Liberal Party is confident of painting Curtin blue once again. It has picked former Uber executive Tom White – who was working in South Korea during the last election – to contest the seat.
Note: This article originally included the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari as one of the closest in the country. However, following redistribution (which was finalised later in the NT than in other states and territories), the AEC has slightly increased Labor’s margin in the seat from 0.95 to 1.6 per cent, making it the 13th-closest seat.
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