Labor will retain the federal seat of Lyons and is now just one seat short of parliamentary majority, after the Australian Electoral Commission corrected an earlier count, boosting Labor candidate Brian Mitchell's lead to more than 1100 votes.
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Labor now needs to win either the Victorian seat of Macnamara or the NSW seat of Gilmore to attain a majority in Australia's House of Representatives, allowing it to govern without support from independents or minor parties.
Labor's candidate Josh Burns leads by nearly 18,000 votes in Macnamara, and is "highly likely" to win, according to election analyst Kevin Bonham.
Lyons incumbent Mr Mitchell survived a hefty 7 per cent first preference swing against him favoring Liberal Party challenger Susie Bower, a former director of community and economic development at Dorset Council.
With over 80 per cent of votes counted, the margin appeared to be as close as 534 votes earlier on Thursday, putting Mr Mitchell's lead in doubt as postal votes continued to be collated.
But the AEC moved to correct the count mid-afternoon, boosting Mr Mitchell's lead and prompting some election analysts to declare the seat won.
Mitchell said he was pleased at being declared the winner, but warned against pre-empting the decision with thousands of postal and absentee votes yet to be counted.
"I am quietly confident but I'd like to wait until a few more votes are counted ... before calling the seat," he said.
He also criticized the Liberal Party for running a "smear campaign" during the election.
"Obviously it was a tight race and the Liberals threw everything at the seat, they did run a smear campaign which was very unfortunate ... I hope we've seen those scare tactics off."
Those campaign smear tactics included ads and posts on the Liberal Party's social media accounts about Mitchell's personal social media history and his relationship to women.
Mitchell said if he is declared winner in Lyons, he will be focusing on putting his energy into the seat, and will put his front bench ambitions on hold.
He said his focus over the next three years will be on realising the commitments Labor made to Lyons, including "getting healthcare outcomes through regional Tasmania ... and providing people with a quality standard of living".
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