Wyatt likes the odd but keeping his cards close in Hasluck

MUCH of Australia already considers him to be the first Aborigine elected to the House of Representatives, but Ken Wyatt is being far more cautious.

Despite leading Labor's Sharryn Jackson by 363 votes, two-party preferred, in the battle for the ultra-marginal seat of Hasluck, Mr Wyatt was refusing to claim victory last night.

The Australian Electoral Commission will continue counting postal and early votes today. Neither side expected to know the result until tomorrow, at the earliest. The commission says a decisive count could take weeks.

Mr Wyatt won 2590 primary votes more than Ms Jackson, but preference distribution eroded most of that lead.

Late yesterday, Mr Wyatt accepted he was a slight favourite. "Based on the percentages today, you would be favourably disposed to them, but it comes back to what the bottom line is when the AEC declares it," he said.

There was no such caution from the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, on Saturday night, when he all but gave Mr Wyatt his place in history with a rousing reference in his address to Liberal Party faithful in Sydney.

Aboriginal men - Neville Bonner and Aden Ridgeway - have won Senate seats, but Mr Wyatt would be the first indigenous man elected to Canberra's green chamber if he won Hasluck.

Mr Wyatt has ancestry in three of WA's major indigenous tribes, as well as Indian and English blood.

He has carved an impressive bureaucratic career in Aboriginal health and education, including a four-year stint as the NSW director of Aboriginal Health. Mr Wyatt said his stint in NSW was valuable because it forced him to be "a small fish in a big pond" once more.

Ms Jackson, who first won Hasluck in 2001, lost it in 2004, then regained it in 2007, refused to concede defeat yesterday.

Labor's WA state secretary, Simon Mead, said it was impossible to predict a winner.