Dr Monique Ryan, the Teal MP for Kooyong, declared victory on Saturday night, but now admits the race is still on and that she could yet lose the high-profile seat.
Dr Ryan’s margin over Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer in the blue-ribbon electorate in in Melbourne’s leafy inner east has shrunk to just 1, 408 votes on Monday during the counting of pre-poll and postal returns.
The former paediatric neurologist declared victory on Saturday night, with her husband holding up a ‘Kooyong we did it!’ sign before she addressed supporters.
But Dr Ryan said she no longer felt safe in the contest, declaring the outcome was a ’50-50′ proposition.
‘Things were looking good on the night, in (election analyst) Antony Green we trusted,’ she told ABC Radio Melbourne on Monday morning.
‘But postal votes have been very much pro the conservative side so I think at this point Kooyong is very much in the air. It’s possible (I could lose).’
Dr Ryan’s primary vote was up 4.1 per cent on the previous election, but has only received 25 per cent of the postal votes thus far, compared with 57 per cent for Ms Hamer.
The road to re-election has been chaotic over the five-week campaign with Dr Ryan facing a series of controversies.
A week before election day, on April 27, Dr Ryan came under fire after footage emerged of two campaign volunteers claiming they were told by China-linked community group the Hubei Association to support her.
The group has previously been accused of working with the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Department, a foreign influence operations agency.
As a result, the n Electoral Commission referred the video to the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce, a move which was welcomed by the Teal MP.
The drama surrounding her campaign kicked off in March when her husband, Peter Jordan, was filmed removing a sign backing Ms Hamer.
‘I unreservedly apologise for removing the sign. It was a mistake,’ Mr Jordan later told Daily Mail .
‘I believed the sign was illegally placed, but I should have reported my concerns to council.’
Dr Ryan also issued her own apology, saying it should not have happened.
Meanwhile, fellow teal MP Zoe Daniel’s lead over Liberal candidate Tim Wilson in the Melbourne seat of Goldstein has dwindled to fewer than 100 votes after postal returns.
The former journalist leads by just 95 votes and expected it would take days for the final result to be confirmed.
If Mr Wilson or Ms Hamer, or both, are able to turn the tables on the Teals, they are likely to be the Liberals’ only federal representatives in metropolitan Melbourne.
Liberal frontbencher Michael Sukkar has lost his ultra-marginal seat of Deakin, with Menzies still not declared as up-and-coming MP Keith Wolahan narrows the lead of Labor’s Gabriel Ng.
Aaron Violi is projected to hold onto the neighbouring seat of Casey after trailing Labor’s Naomi Oakley on the night but in Flinders, fellow Liberal Zoe McKenzie’s battle with independent Ben Smith and Labor’s Sarah Race is too close to call.
La Trobe MP Jason Woods, who survived a primary vote swing of five per cent against him, said the Liberals ‘double trouble’ attack on Anthony Albanese and Premier Jacinta Allan failed to land with voters.
‘It just didn’t cut through at all,’ he said.
Elsewhere, Labor’s Sarah Whitty is ahead of Greens leader Adam Bandt in Melbourne and long-time Labor MP Peter Khalil leads Wills over the Greens former state leader Samantha Ratnam.
But the ALP’s Lisa Chester’s race with Nationals candidate Andrew Lethlean in Bendigo, which overlaps the state premier’s seat, was too close to call.
Ms Allan claimed credit for Labor’s stunning result in Victoria when speaking to reporters on Sunday, declaring it wasn’t in spite of her government’s work but because of it.
Deputy Prime Minster Richard Marles wasn’t so sure, suggesting people voted on federal issues and the choice between Mr Albanese and Peter Dutton.
‘I was confident in the context of Victoria… that as we got closer to the election people would ultimately see that that was the choice,’ he said.
Former Liberal strategist turned pollster Tony Barry led off recriminations of the party on election night, calling the state branch a ‘broken institution’.
He noted state Liberal leader Brad Battin promoted outspoken MP Moira Deeming to become his ‘representative to the western suburbs’ during the campaign as she continues to pursue former leader John Pesutto for legal costs following her defamation trial win.