According to the ABC, 86.6 per cent of the electorate’s votes had been counted by Sunday.

Dr Gillespie secured 62 per cent of the two-party preferred vote – eclipsing nearest rival Labor’s Peter Alley, who had 37.9 per cent of the vote.  

Dr Gillespie was first elected in 2013 and said he would look to continue “being a strong voice for the electorate in Canberra”.

“I’m very pleased and honoured and humbled that the people of Lyne have placed their trust in me,” Dr Gillespie said. 

With the election over, Dr Gillespie said he would continue to do what he did in his first term as a “hard-working country MP”.

His electorate now includes the towns of Forster, Bulahdelah, Gloucester and Dungog, courtesy of a redistributed boundary, which also saw Port Macquarie shifted north to the electorate of Cowper, where National Party member Luke Hartsuyker looks to have defended his seat from former Lyne independent Rob Oakeshott. 

In an admirable performance independent Brad Christensen won 9.4 per cent of first preference votes, outperforming Greens candidate and former Gloucester mayor Julia Lyford.

Elaine Carter of the Christian Democratic Party and independent Rodger Riach received three per cent and two per cent of first preference votes respectively. 

Counting for the House of Representatives was set to resume on Tuesday, with the Australian Electoral Comission working on Sunday and Monday counting declaration votes, verifying postal votes and counting pre-poll Senate votes. 

It meant that an announcement on the country’s leadership was left in limbo for several days, with Labor and the Coalition both short of the 76 seats needed to command a majority in the lower house ahead of counting resuming. Dr Gillespie said on Monday that, with a million postal votes yet to be counted, he was confident of a Coalition victory.