Labor's safest seats could soon fall as independents use the party's complacency to eat into their vote.
The south Canberra seat of Bean became one of the first major upsets on election night as independent Jessie Price stormed ahead of sitting MP David Smith during the early count.
Though the battle for the Labor heartland has evened out in recent days, the final outcome could come down to a few hundred votes.
A similar story is playing out on different sides of the country, with independent Kate Hulett jostling for power against Labor MP Josh Wilson in the West Australian seat of Fremantle, and independent Peter George threatening agriculture minister Julie Collins in the Tasmanian seat of Franklin.
"Everyone is on notice, there are no safe seats," Ms Price told AAP.
Voters in each of these electorates produced some of the biggest movements against Labor with swings upwards of 10 per cent.
The results have struck many by surprise after an election where the governing party won in a landslide, and the 2022 contest where independents were generally only successful against Liberal candidates.
But election analyst Kevin Bonham, who lives in the Tasmanian electorate of Clark, said many of these campaigns followed the same playbook his local MP Andrew Wilkie used when he won as an independent in 2010.
"It's the original template for taking a safe Labor seat that the party has taken for granted," he told AAP.
"They ran a very poor candidate and a very poor campaign and Wilkie was able to step in."
Ms Price has been campaigning since November but said Labor had been disinterested about the threat she presented until the campaign's final weeks.
"There was a complacency about being a safe seat instead of trying to be connected with community and understanding voters' feelings," she said.
"There is that real disappointment with Labor's timidity and not following through on the values that we know are actually really important to people."
During AAP's hour-long interview with Ms Price, six constituents came up to express gratitude for her efforts.
One of them was Kate, a small business owner who has previously voted for Labor and the Greens but broke with tradition to support Ms Price.
"I felt for the first time I had found someone I really related to and that she would be able to represent the things that are important to me," she told AAP.
"I still see so much patriarchy in the parties as well, so this was very much a feminism vote for me."
On the other side, Mr Smith has been seen as a "weak link", Mr Bonham said.
Canberra resident Felicity Turnbull said she had preferenced Labor first because she wanted to be "absolutely certain" the Liberals didn't get in, believing the coalition was moving too much to the right.
"But if Jessie Price gets the seat, I won't be unhappy," she told AAP.
"I don't know what (Mr Smith's) done, but the fact that I don't know means that he hasn't done anything newsworthy."
Mr Smith's office has declined to comment as the count is ongoing.
Canberra has grown an appetite for independents after electing David Pocock in 2022, and on Saturday local voters almost doubled his primary vote.
Senator Pocock welcomed the possible addition of more independents like Ms Price as their popularity was "recognition that the status quo isn't working".
"If you're an independent going up against parties, you're the only person who can vote in the best interests of your state or territory or electorate 100 per cent of the time and not have to bow to vested interests," he told AAP.
While independents have received significant growth in support in Labor strongholds, those who paved the way for the movement by contesting Liberal seats in 2022 have not seen the same increase this time around.
This is partially because there is less prospect for growth as many received their big swings during the previous contest, election analyst Ben Raue said.
But "teal" independents, who got their name by running on the environment and "green" policies in blue-ribbon seats, are also viewed in a different light after a term in government largely working together.
"They're not just seen as individuals, as time has gone on they're seen as a bigger political movement and have been kind of judged collectively," Mr Raue told AAP.
Regardless of whether they are in Labor or Liberal heartlands, the hopes of many independents rest on a knife's edge.
With Zoe Daniel projected to lose the Melbourne seat of Goldstein to Liberal Tim Wilson by a few hundred votes, Monique Ryan's lead remains slim in Kooyong and Ms Price's predicted outcome seems to fluctuate every few hours.
But the Bean candidate said it is out of her hands.
"We've put Bean on the map, and people are feeling really proud of what we've done here together," she said.
