It’s polling day, and the Crikey team is on the road checking out some of Australia’s most tightly fought seats. Politics reporter Anton Nilsson heads to Queensland, where Liberal leader Peter Dutton hopes to hang onto his Dickson seat in the face of fierce campaigning by Labor. The electorate, north-west of Brisbane, was visited six times by the two major party leaders this election. Nilsson also checks in with the Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather in Brisbane, and meets some seriously swinging voters. Meanwhile media reporter Daanyal Saeed hits the streets in Melbourne, performing a mad dash around some of the country’s most intriguing races: Goldstein, Wills and Kooyong (the latter an electorate that has produced many, many, many stories this election.) We’ve also got associate editor Cam Wilson and editor Alisha Rouse reporting from their local electorates in Sydney, while readers’ editor Crystal Andrews has the lowdown from Franklin, Tasmania. Kooyong, Vic With a shift to pre-poll and voters choosing when to engage with the election on their own terms and in their own time, Kooyong was a notable exception to the general rule that this polling day was the least busy in recent memory. Where other polling booths were a gentle trickle, Kooyong was an avalanche of voters. At Glenferrie Primary School at 10am, where incumbent independent Monique Ryan cast her own vote (despite the late attempts at conversion from an optimistic Greens volunteer), the lines snaked outside the polling centre and onto Glenferrie Road, with a swarm of volunteers descending onto the booth as a result. Kooyong sits on a razor-thin 2.2% after Ran defeated then treasurer Josh Frydenberg in 2022 — and everybody involved knows it. Ryan told Crikey that “cost of living” encompassed just about everything that voters were raising as their key issues, even in the relatively wealthy electorate of Kooyong. Amelia Hamer, the Liberal candidate, didn’t respond to Crikey’s invitations for an interview. Goldstein, Vic Goldstein, held by Climate 200 independent and former ABC journalist Zoe Daniel on a 3.3% margin after a 2022 win over Liberal MP Tim Wilson, is another one of Melbourne’s glamour electorates, taking in most of the ritzy bayside suburbs home to the city’s rich and famous. Despite the thin margin and the Liberals targeting the seat, polling booths visited by Crikey were as notable for their lack of activity as they were for any actual movement. Hampton Primary School was flanked with immense amounts of Zoe Daniel bunting, with Crikey having missed the local member casting her vote alongside her son at 8am. Ormond Primary, meanwhile, featured two enterprising children selling lemonade outside. We suspect they had not seen reports of significant numbers at pre-poll prior to setting up their stand. Interview requests with the children were declined. Liberal sources speaking to Crikey said there was a widely held apathy among Goldstein voters to Wilson’s attempt to reenter politics — although a number of sources reported by other publications including 6 News felt the seat remained in play, even late on polling day. Dickson, Qld An hour before the close of polls, at a voting place in Bray Park State School in Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson, volunteers for the local candidates were buzzing over an unexpected and high-profile media event. “There was a reporter with The New York Times here,” a volunteer for independent challenger Ellie Smith said. That was probably as exciting as it was going to get this late in the afternoon, with the sun setting and voter lines thinning out. Earlier in the day, Labor’s three-time candidate Ali France came to this polling station to cast her vote. With the seat on a margin of just 1.7%, she might have a shot this time, although Dutton has weathered thin margins before and managed to hold on to the seat since 2001. The voters Crikey spoke to had all cast their ballots for minor candidates — though that might not be much of an indication of how the seat will go given this particular polling place had more Labor primary votes than it did LNP primary votes back in 2022. Local 61-year-old Darren Searle said he voted One Nation and placed the rest of his preferences “anywhere but the major parties”. “The major parties aren’t supporting long-term visions, they’re just looking at what they can do to get elected another term,” he said. “Pauline Hanson and other non-major political players talk from their heart, and sometimes it makes them look bad, but it’s honest.” Wills, like Kooyong, is too close to call. Labor incumbent Peter Khalil was elected on an 8.2% margin in 2022, but redistributions have shifted the seat south, taking in more of what was once Greens-held Melbourne. Labor sources around the country speaking to Crikey were nervous at the prospect of losing a seat that includes traditional Labor heartland. Crikey bounced around polling booths in the seat, and while Brunswick North was almost entirely devoid of ALP volunteers, booths further north in Coburg West and Pascoe Vale South had a significantly boosted Labor presence. With the importance of speaking to voters front of mind, media outlets were told Khalil’s whereabouts for interview would not be provided voluntarily. Crikey spent a significant portion of the day chasing Khalil in vain. Clearly, the man who previously worked as a secret US government protected source has developed some impressive hide-and-seek skills. Franklin, Tas In contrast to the scenes at polling stations in the big cities around the country, it was a quiet, orderly affair at Howrah Primary School in the seat of Franklin, where community independent Peter George is an outside chance to unseat Labor Fisheries Minister Julie Collins. While there were some big signs for George and Collins just inside the school gates, there were not corflute wars to speak of… except for a lone Liberal Party sign (no mention of candidate Josh Garvin) slapped on the wall of the classroom where polling was taking place, staying just compliant of the Australian Electoral Commission’s six-metre rule. Brisbane, Qld At a polling station in the Brisbane suburb of Bulimba, Greens incumbent Max Chandler-Mather was positioned on the sidewalk at lunchtime, trying to sway as many voters as he could. “I’m rusted on,” said an LNP supporter when asked by the Griffith MP if there was any chance he could be convinced to vote Green. Chandler-Mather’s media team had told Crikey he would not be doing interviews at the polling station, and that turned out to be a non-negotiable: “I’m focused on the voters,” Chandler-Mather told Crikey when approached. Another pair of voters who passed by Chandler-Mather in the line said they would vote LNP, but urged him to “do something about the flight path”. Reducing the noise from a new Brisbane Airport runway opened in 2020 has been a key local issue for the city’s federal Greens MPs. A placard hung on the party’s sidewalk gazebo at the polling station said: “Flight curfew, cap on flights, more flights over the water.” A 61-year-old voter named Gus told Crikey the Greens’ advocacy on that issue had convinced him to vote for Chandler-Mather in 2022. This time, just a few queue spots away from voting, he wasn’t sure who to choose, and said he would decide in the booth. Another local swing voter, 86-year-old Patrick Johnson, said he had voted LNP several times in the past few decades, and backed Chandler-Mather in 2022. This time around, he chose Labor instead. “I think the Labor government has done a good job so far,” Johnson said, adding the economy and the environment were the most important issues to him. A vote for the LNP was out of the question this time, due to Peter Dutton’s plans to introduce nuclear energy. “Dutton’s nuclear plan was a turnoff for me,” he said. As for the Greens, the party lost his support this time around due to their stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict. Anna Sosnowski, 25, from Petrie Terrace in the division of Brisbane, said she cast a ballot for the Greens. She said the Greens were an easy choice for her because she was progressive, and wanted dental care to be included under Medicare. The Voice to Parliament referendum outcome had further underscored her support for the party, she said. “It was very shocking that Queensland was so racist about it, and I think the country needs to be more Indigenous focused,” she said. Chandler-Mather holds Griffith on a 10.5% margin, but Labor’s Renee Coffey has a chance of taking it, according to a major poll published earlier in the week. While a Greens volunteer told Crikey the party’s chances appeared good, based on chats with voters in the line, it’s understood an exit poll taken at the polling station showed roughly equal numbers between the Greens, Labor and the LNP candidate Anthony Bishop as of about 1pm Saturday. One voter who backed the LNP at the last election, and was tossing up between Bishop and Trumpet of Patriots candidate Aaron Hayes this time around, said Labor and the Greens hadn’t convinced him they would be able to do a proper job running the economy. “They talk about Medicare and all this cheap stuff, but they never say where they’re getting the money from, Reilly Beach, 21, said. “Dutton says he wants to build nuclear — that means jobs, and that’s what I’m agreeing with.” Wentworth, NSW Not that Sydney’s eastern suburbs are ever unpleasant to look at, but after a week of relentless rain which necessitated crossing the road in a boat, the sun was shining at the polling centre inside the Clovelly Surf Life Saving Club. Incumbent teal Allegra Spender, who won in 2022 with a 6.8% margin, is trying to keep her seat in a fierce fight with Liberal hopeful Ro Knox. Spender’s how to vote card, unlike many candidates, just asked supporters to put her first — with one volunteer heard saying “she won’t tell you who else to vote for”. The crowds around the area could make one very teary-eyed about enthusiasm for the democratic process. But to be honest, most people walking past are backpackers on the Bondi-Coogee coastal walk with no ability to participate. Things were much less busy at the St Sophia & Three Daughters Greek Orthodox Church an hour and a bit before polls closed. Just a stone’s throw away the busiest part of Oxford Street, a few solitary volunteers for the major parties, Greens and Spender stood listlessly on the sidewalk. Following a tight, labyrinthine pathway off the street into the church, it eventually opened up into a light-filled hall that was split in two because of the polling place’s proximity to two electorates: Sydney on one side, Wentworth on the other. On the way out (via an equally claustrophobic corridor), voters were routed past a barbeque where they had the option of a lamb and halloumi gyros. And it wasn’t just voters, either. A man in his late 20s strolled in through the exit off the street. He looked stunned at the food on offer, took off his cap and ran his hand through his hair as if he was blown away by the offering. “What do you want,” a bloke behind the trestle table gently asked the wayward traveller. “It looks so good… I want it so bad,” the man replied. “Well, you deserve it for voting.” “Oh, I didn’t vote. I came here to vote, but…” he trailed off. Then: “I just don’t think anyone should vote.” The church volunteer manning the gyros station made a noise that wasn’t quite agreement, but it wasn’t disagreement either. As we walked out, we heard the conscientious objector make a decision: “I’ll have a lamb one.”