"She's well and truly in play," Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce says of the NSW seat of Hunter. -AAP Image
Barnaby Joyce believes his party could pick up the New South Wales seat of Hunter and add to the 10 seats it holds in the House of Representatives.
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The Nationals leader told Sky News independent candidate Stuart Bonds left polling stations early and told him Nationals candidate James Thomson would win the seat, beating Labor candidate Dan Repacholi who replaces retiring MP Joel Fitzgibbon.
"It's on ... I think she's well and truly in play," Mr Joyce said of Hunter on Saturday.
"And you've got to remember, even us asking that question ... what does that say about how the Labor party and regional areas?"
However as vote counting continued, at 7pm AEST Mr Repacholi was on 53 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, ahead of Mr Thomson.
Mr Joyce repeated his standard claim that Labor does not represent regional people.
"You've got two different elections on here ... You've got the regional Australia election and the urban Australia election," he said.
"Regional Australia is just annoyed that - especially the Labor Party - they think they can come up with a Sydney policy and somehow ... put a bow on it and it becomes a regional policy ... it doesn't.
"They want you to protect their jobs. When they're getting $46 or $56 an hour they don't want to hear you're going to put them on $26 bucks screwing in solar panels."
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