While opinion polls have given the Coalition and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton hope of ousting the government after a single term – something that hasn’t happened since 1931 – the electoral maths is more daunting.

So how could the Coalition make up that much ground, and how will Labor hope to hang on to enough seats for a second term? 

In the first of three articles, we look at each party’s path to victory and the seats that could decide Australia’s next government, starting with the main targets for the opposition.

Step one: Win the ultra-marginals

The first and most obvious step for the Coalition is to pick up the seats Labor holds by slim margins.

Top of the list is Bennelong which, while held by Labor’s Jerome Laxale, is already notionally a Liberal seat after redistribution. Once the electoral home of John Howard, this is only the second term in the seat’s history that it’s been held by Labor, and Scott Yung is looking to bring it back to the fold.

Gilmore on the NSW South Coast is another must-win – it was the closest seat in the country in 2022, and the Coalition has a well-known candidate in former state minister Andrew Constance – while Lyons in Tasmania and Lingiari, which covers the vast majority of the Northern Territory, are also obvious targets.

Labor has pulled in former state opposition leader Rebecca White in an attempt to sure up Lyons, but with a sub-1 per cent margin in each seat, all three will be tight races.

The likes of Tagney (2.85 per cent), Paterson (2.6 per cent) and Hunter (4.78 per cent) are among the other marginals the Coalition will be eyeing off.

Win five of those seven seats and it will already have made up a quarter of the ground it needs for majority government.

Destination government, via the outer suburbs

Since becoming opposition leader, Peter Dutton has made clear his intention to chart a course back to government through Australia’s outer suburbs.

“All I want to do is to make sure that we don’t forget about those in the suburbs, and I do think they are the forgotten people,” he said in 2022.

With suburban mortgage holders having borne the brunt of interest rate hikes this term – and therefore ripe for a cost-of-living-focused campaign – they won’t be forgotten this election.

Despite being barren territory for the Liberals in recent times, there’s a swath of such seats in Victoria which, along with a similar group in NSW, offer Dutton and the Coalition the best path back to power.

Aston was won by the Liberals in 2022 before being snatched by Labor during a historic byelection a year later, but it’s considered unlikely to stay in the government’s hands.

Dunkley is another seat on Melbourne’s outskirts that went to a byelection – it was retained by Labor following the death of former MP Peta Murphy, but still saw a big swing to the Liberals that could put it within striking distance this time around.

Add in Bruce (5.31 per cent margin), Holt (7.11 per cent), and Hawke (7.62 per cent) as well as the more metropolitan Chisholm (3.33 per cent) and far more rural McEwen (3.82 per cent), and you have eight Victorian seats with a flippable margin for the Coalition.

Look to New South Wales and it’s a similar case, particularly in Western Sydney, where Parramatta (3.72 per cent), Reid (5.19 per cent) and Werriwa (5.34 per cent) are all marginal government seats.

Just north of Sydney, on the Central Coast, and Robertson is a key contest. Held by Labor on just a 2.23 per cent margin, it has been a bellwether – a seat won by the party that forms government – at every federal election since 1983.

Shortland (6 per cent) on Newcastle’s southern outskirts could also be in play for the Coalition.

South Australia is relatively safe turf for Labor given the strength of Peter Malinauskas’ state government, but Boothby will definitely be targeted by the Coalition.

Former MP Nicolle Flint, who quit parliament ahead of the last election over sexist personal attacks and a health battle with stage four endometriosis, has made a return to politics to recontest the seat.

The last election was the first time Labor had won Boothby since the 1940s, and at 3.28 per cent, it’s a marginal contest.

Queensland offers very few options for the Liberals to win seats off the government (more on that later) but the one exception is Blair.

The margin isn’t particularly tight at 5.23 per cent, but swings of between 6 and 11.3 per cent to the Liberals in overlapping seats at last year’s state election suggest it could be winnable for Dutton.

The country’s newest electorate will also be in his crosshairs. Bullwinkel, in Perth’s eastern outskirts, has been created for this election, and while it’s notionally a Labor seat, the margin of 3.35 per cent is skinny.

It’s also been suggested that neighbouring Hasluck and Pearce could be in play, although losing seats with margins up around 10 per cent would spell particularly dire news for Labor.

Tomorrow, we look at the seats Labor can snatch to bolster its chances of staying in government.