The Nationals Pat Conaghan has claimed victory in Cowper with 82.0% of the votes counted.

A lawyer, Mr Conaghan is a political newcomer. In his professional capacity, Mr Conaghan has contributed much of his time pro-bono to assist women’s shelters, youth groups and community legal centres.

In his victory speech Mr Conaghan said: “This is exciting. This is really exciting”, telling those who voted for him that he will not let them down.

There is no word yet from the Oakeshott camp.

In Port Macquarie, the polling booth results show National Party wins across the board.

The National Party results in Cowper echo the national trend with the Liberal / National alliance achieving an overall swing of 1.5% swing (2PP) in what PM Morrison calls 'A miracle" result.

Morrison also thanked 'The quiet Australians' for the Coalitions victory, after Bill Shorten stood down as Labor leader last night.

"The Coalition vote is down a little bit, Labor is down 1.4 per cent. It's the flow from the third parties which has created quite a difference here. When that converts into two-party preferred, there is 1.5 per cent swing to the Coalition across the country" - Anthony Green, ABC.

Results : 82.0% counted  1.30AM 19-05-19

Preference count;

The Nationals |Pat Conaghan

Vote: 56.5% 46,879 (Swing +2.0%)

Independent | Rob Oakeshott

Vote: 43.5% 36,026 (Swing -2.0%)

First Preference results : 

Nationals | Pat Conaghan

Vote: 48.0% 45,350 (Swing+2.0%)

Independent | Rob Oakeshott

Vote: 24.5% 23,180 (Swing -1.8%)

Labor Party | Andrew Woodward

Vote: 13.5% 12,772 (Swing -0.1%)

Greens | Lauren Edwards

Vote: 5.6% 5,306 (Swing -1.1%)

United Australia | Alexander Stewart

Vote: 2.9% 2,746 (Swing +2.9%)

Others | Vote: 5.4% 5,145