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Pocock,who campaigned on greater climate action,integrity issues and territory rights such as voluntary assisted dying,or two Jacqui Lambie Network senators – Lambie and her new Tasmanian colleague Tammy Tyrrell – are the most likely to give the government this support.

The AEC started calculating full Senate preference results on Tuesday. It confirmed Labor’s Katy Gallagher and independent Pocock won the two seats in the ACT while the Northern Territory elected Malarndirri McCarthy from Labor and the Country Liberal Party’s Jacinta Price. It is the first time the ACT hasn’t returned a Liberal senator.

“Today,the extraordinary movement of people we brought together across the ACT made history,” Pocock said in a statement. “Our campaign aimed to make politics about people. We built a policy platform off the back of thousands of conversations about the things that matter.”

The rugby union great promised to judge each piece of legislation on how it affected the people of the ACT and whether it squared with the future they had told him they wanted.

He said he had spoken with Lambie and former independent senator Rex Patrick about how they approached the task but would not reveal whether there were any promises on infrastructure or other policies for the ACT he wanted to extract for his support.

“Clearly having a good team is crucial to being across the legislation – I’ll need to be across it and understand it and see where I can add value,” he said in an interview. His campaign attracted more than 2200 volunteers and he said one of the advantages of being in the ACT was access to policy experts.

Zed Seselja,who was minister for international development and the Pacific in the Morrison government,has lost his Senate seat.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

In a statement on his Facebook page on Tuesday,Seselja,the former minister for international development and the Pacific,defended his record in fighting for “both conservative and liberal principles” during his time in public life – including nine years as a federal senator and nine in the ACT parliament.

“There are some who argue that I should have abandoned some of these values as a way to win more votes,” he said. “These critics ignore the fact that at this election those in my party in similar seats who had very different views to mine nonetheless suffered much larger swings than what occurred in the ACT ... But most importantly,following this prescription of rolling over to the left would have been both wrong in principle and ultimately futile electorally.”

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the election of Gallagher and Pocock would start a new era in Commonwealth-territory relations and that Seselja had too often used his role to attack the ACT government.

The South Australian preference count,which will be done on Wednesday,is expected to return two Labor,one Green and two Liberal senators,with the final spot a three-way race between the Liberals,Labor and One Nation.

The other Senate seat that won’t be known until the full preference count is done is the sixth spot in Victoria,which is also a three-way race between Labor,the Liberals and the United Australia Party.

In both cases,electoral analysts Kevin Bonham and Antony Green say the Liberals appear to have the edge.

Meanwhile,the AEC is considering the request fromformer NSW transport minister Constance for a recount in Gilmore,which recorded the narrowest result in the country. Labor incumbent Fiona Phillips retained the seat with 50.17 per cent of the vote,ahead of Constance by just 373 votes.

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