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Federal election latest: Which seats are still in doubt? Has Labor reached a majority?

Six days after the 2022 election, Australians are still waiting to hear who will be the final choices to sit in the next federal parliament. (Wikimedia Commons: JJ Harrison)

We're nearly a full week out from last Saturday's federal election, and Labor is now one seat shy of forming a majority government, where it can govern in its own right.

The Tasmanian seat of Lyon was called on Thursday afternoon, taking the ALP to 75 seats. 

This means four seats still remain in doubt.

This is how things are looking at the moment. 

The seats still in doubt

Macnamara, Victoria

With 73.3 per cent of the votes counted, Labor's Josh Burns leads by 17,885 votes.

ABC's chief elections analyst, Antony Green, explains that scrutineer figures based on an AEC preference throw for the five lowest-polling candidates producing preference flows of 18 per cent to Labor, 34 per cent to the Greens and 48 per cent to the Liberals.

"Applying those puts the final three candidates within 1,000 votes of each other," he said.

"If the Greens or Liberal candidates are third, Labor wins. If the Labor candidate is third, the Greens win.

"For this reason Macnamara is being left in doubt."

This electorate includes the suburbs of Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, Middle Park, South Yarra, St Kilda, Balaclava, Elwood and parts of Elsternwick and Caulfield. 

Brisbane, Queensland

 Green says the count in Brisbane will exclude the four lowest-polling candidates first.

"This will determine an order for the final three candidates: LNP, Labor and the Greens," he said.

"The preference count shown here uses a preference estimate for the first four exclusions provided to me by scrutineers. That is running at 35.1 per cent to Greens, 15.6 per cent to Labor and 49.3 per cent to LNP."

Green says this currently puts the Greens ahead of Labor during the distribution of preferences. This could result in the Greens going on to defeat the LNP.

However, he added, the result "may flip to Labor winning if further counting changes the balance of Labor versus Greens first preferences or alters the exclusion order during the distribution of preferences". 

With 70.8 per cent of the votes counted, the Greens candidate Stephen Bates is in the lead by 4,126 votes.

This electorate includes the suburbs of New Farm, Newstead, Bowen Hills, Windsor, Kelvin Grove, Newmarket, Enoggera, Wilston, Albion, Clayfield, Ascot, Hamilton, Lutwyche, Wooloowin and parts of Stafford.

Deakin, Victoria

With 83.7 per cent of the votes counted, the seat of outgoing Liberal assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar is still a close call.

At present, Mr Sukkar is ahead of the Labor Party's Matt Gregg by 1,032 votes.

Deakin includes all, or parts of, the suburbs of Blackburn, Forest Hill, Mitcham, Vermont, Ringwood, Heathmont, Croydon and Bayswater North.

Gilmore, New South Wales

The federal seat of Gilmore has only 286 votes separating Liberal challenger, former NSW transport minister Andrew Constance, and Labor incumbent Fiona Phillips.

Gilmore is a mixed electorate, covering 6,342 square kilometres on the NSW south coast.

It's been a narrow margin in this race, and more postal votes are anticipated to arrive until June 3.

This seat was called on Thursday:

Lyons, Tasmania

Labor's Brian Mitchel has retained the Tasmanian seat of Lyons, defeating the LNP's Susie Bower, ABC chief election analyst Anthony Green says.

Lyons is Tasmania's largest electorate and takes in just less than half of the state.

When will vote-counting finish?

Including the votes made in person, there has also been a mountain of postal votes to sort through, with many of these taking up to two weeks to arrive before being counted. 

These postal votes could be vital in determining the outcome in some extremely close but narrow seats.

Australian Electoral Commission staff have been sorting and counting votes since polls closed on Saturday, May 21. 

Liberal leader Peter Dutton promises to bring "relentless resolve" to new role.
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