18 million people voted but these seats flipped to decide the election

The major parties were scrambling to pick up one another's marginal seats in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide - and hack away at support for Greens' and independent MPs in the cities.

But huge swings against the Liberal party delivered Labor a decisive win on May 3 - and boosted the fortunes of some independents.

Held by Liberal frontbencher Michael Sukkar since 2013, the suburban Melbourne seat of Deakin was the most marginal in the country at 0.02 per cent.

Mostly won by the Liberal party in the past, in 2025 Labor's Matt Gregg, a lawyer and former teacher, won the electorate.

While first-term Liberal Keith Wolahan held Menzies' in Melbourne's north east, a boundary redistribution gives Labor a tiny margin of 0.4 per cent.

In 2022 the primary vote for the Liberal party went backwards and in 2025 Labor's Gabriel Ng, a lawyer, former public servant and son of a Chinese Singaporean immigrant won the seat.

Long-time Labor senator Anne Urquhart's tilt at the lower house proved a winner as she obliterated the 8.03 percentage point margin the Liberals won in the north-west and west coast Tasmanian seat in the 2022 election.

Sturt, in Adelaide's eastern suburbs, was held by James Stevens, the only successful Liberal in 2022 in the South Australian capital city.

Despite being held by the Liberal party for many decades (Christopher Pyne was the former long-running member), it had one of the smallest margins at 0.5 per cent in the country.

He was running against independent candidate and local doctor Verity Cooper, who is backed by Climate 200, as well as local lawyer Claire Clutterham for Labor, and Greens candidate Katie McCusker, who grew her vote by 5.2 per cent in 2022.

Mr Clutterham proved victorious on the night.

Calare in central west NSW covers 32,600 square kilometres of land, taking in Orange, Bathurst, Lithgow, Dubbo and Oberon.

Energy is a hot topic in the seat, where the Coalition had promised to house one of its seven controversial nuclear reactors.

A renewable energy zone crosses part of the electorate and there are vocal pockets of opposition to wind energy.

Nationals MP-turned independent Andrew Gee, who quit the party over its opposition to the Voice to Parliament, held the seat, despite fierce opposition from the Nationals' candidate Sam Farraway and Climate 200-supported independent Kate Hook.