The seat of Gilmore, on the NSW South Coast, was one of the most at-risk Labor seats. Incumbent Fiona Phillips was defending a 373-vote margin against Liberal Andrew Constance. In the previous election, Constance, a high-profile former state member for Bega, overcame Coalition infighting during preselection to secure a 2.5 per cent swing towards him, even as the Coalition suffered a 5.3 per cent drift the other way. He came within a hair’s breadth of winning. In the end, Phillips won by the aforementioned 373 votes in a seat declared days after election day, securing the party’s 77th seat and delighting Anthony Albanese, who was able to form a majority government as a result. This time around there was another complication. Kate Dezarnaulds, a businesswoman from Berry who won the support of Climate 200, threw her hat in the ring, making Gilmore one of the few seats in the nation where a teal independent ran against an incumbent Labor MP. The seat is a mixed bag of demographics with retirees, public servants, defence force workers and medium-sized towns like Batemans Bay, Ulladulla and Nowra. Labor has stormed home in the southern Sydney seat of Hughes, overturning 20 years of Liberal rule. Labor candidate and former political adviser David Moncrieff delivered a stunning 12 per cent swing on his primary vote, consigning incumbent MP Jenny Ware to a single term in parliament. With nearly two-thirds of the vote counted, Moncrieff was tracking a 7.5 per cent swing once preferences were factored in, making him the first Labor MP in the seat since John Howard was first elected in 1996. While the seat was on a 3.5 per cent margin, almost no one had Hughes as a seat to watch prior to Saturday. But with the Liberals’ primary vote falling 4.5 per cent, Moncrieff’s first preferences overtook Ware. The 380-square-kilometre electorate takes in swaths of southwestern Sydney all the way through to the Sutherland Shire, including Engadine, Heathcoate and Sutherland. Teal independent Sophie Scamps has retained her northern beaches seat of Mackellar, increasing her hold on the once safe Liberal seat. The NSW Liberals had seen Mackellar as their best hope to seize back a teal seat, preselecting former RSL NSW president James Brown as their candidate. Scamps, a northern beaches GP, won Mackellar in 2022 as part of a backlash against the Morrison government which led to her being joined on the crossbench by other teal candidates including Allegra Spender (Wentworth), Zali Steggall (Warringah) and Kylea Tink (North Sydney, which has since been abolished). Labor’s Andrew Charlton retained the western Sydney seat of Parramatta, increasing his margin by 9 per cent as of Saturday night. Charlton won the seat by only 3.7 per cent at the last election, despite being parachuted in after long-time Labor MP Julie Owens retired. Owens held the seat between 2004 and 2022, and there were fears it would fall to the Coalition. But Charlton’s strong result means the seat has shifted back into safe territory for Labor, with Liberal candidate Katie Mullens unable to loosen Charlton’s grip. Parramatta is one of the most culturally diverse seats in the country. At the most recent census, more than 70 per cent of residents reported that both their parents were born overseas, compared with the national average of 36.7 per cent. That diversity formed a core part of Charlton’s campaign, which sought the support of the region’s large Indian, Lebanese and Chinese communities. On the Central Coast, Labor MP Gordon Reid appears as though he will significantly increase his margin in the seat of Robertson after the primary vote of Liberal candidate Lucy Wicks collapsed. With nearly 70 per cent of the vote counted in the peri-urban electorate, Reid had enjoyed a 9 per cent swing. On current projections, his two-party-preferred vote will finish on 60 per cent, taking his seat from marginal to safe. The seat stretches from Patonga to Wamberal on the northern part of the Central Coast. It was an electorate the Coalition felt could respond strongly to Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s political message. But Wicks’ primary vote fell by 10 per cent, with Reid picking up a 7 per cent increase. The result is a stunning repudiation of the Coalition’s message in a part of NSW it should have been winning. Reid was celebrating with party faithful at the Ettalong RSL. Teal MP Allegra Spender easily retained the Sydney seat of Wentworth against Liberal challenger Ro Knox, underscoring the embattled party’s challenge in retaking its once safe harbourside strongholds. Wentworth, the seat formerly held by ex-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull until 2018, fell to Spender at the 2022 election off the back of voter dissatisfaction with the major parties and intense dislike of Scott Morrison. The seat, which takes in some of Sydney’s most exclusive and expensive suburbs, was considered an unlikely gain for the Liberal Party, which was more focused on winning back Mackellar on Sydney’s North Shore from the teals. At the 2022 poll, Spender took the seat with 54.2 per of the vote on a two-candidate-preferred basis compared to Liberal Dave Sharma’s 45.8 per cent. Sharma has since joined the Senate. As of 10pm on Saturday, Spender’s share of the two-candidate vote was 63.2 per cent compared to Knox’s 36.8 per cent, although that gap is likely to narrow slightly over coming days as counting continues. Spender has been pushing the major parties to adopt sweeping tax reforms and advocating for further action on climate change. Labor MP Anne Stanley has held on to her seat of Werriwa in the face of a well-resourced and mobilised Liberal campaign. Celebrating in the Mercure Hotel, part of the Liverpool Catholic Club, Stanley’s supporters were in a celebratory mood as early results showed she had enjoyed a small, two-party-preferred swing towards her. The results were sufficient for NSW Labor secretary Dominic Offner to call the result for Stanley, phoning her around 8pm to congratulate her on the result. In Sydney’s southwest, Liberal hopefuls begun to fill Sahrati, a restaurant and shisha bar in Liverpool, around 7pm, eager to see candidate Sam Kayal knock off Stanley. After furiously campaigning until dusk fell, Kayal has just arrived at the venue to loud cheers. Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun was one notable Liberal figure in attendance, playing host for early arrivers. A mountain of food was organised for Kayal’s backers, but the results have not accompanied the sense of expectation.