Labor leader Bill Shorten is giving an emotional speech to his party.

"It is obvious that Labor will not be able to form the next government," he says.

Confirms he has congratulated Scott Morrison.

Australian media are reporting that Bill Shorten has called PM Scott Morrison to concede - we're expecting to hear from Mr Shorten too.

With 67% of votes counted the ABC has the parties on:

• 74 for Liberal-National Coalition
• 65 for Labor
• 6 Other

A party needs 76 seats to win a majority.

Image source, EPA

We might be about to hear from Bill Shorten, the Labor leader who many believed would be sweeping this election. He's arrived at his party event in Melbourne.

He ran promising stability - that his government would not see the sort of leadership turmoil that has wracked the Liberals - and on commitments to climate change action and economic reform.

It appears that has not worked on voters. The wait now will be to whether he now stands down - after six years as party leader and two lost elections. If he does there's no obvious contender to step into his shoes.

Many Australians will be heartened that Fraser Anning has failed to win a seat for his Fraser Anning Party.

He's a controversial figure, elected to the Senate as a member of Pauline Hanson's right-wing One Nation party but leaving it to sit as an independent. He then joined Bob Katter's party, which kicked him out over his comments about race.

While in the Senate, he has called for a return of the "White Australia" policy which gave preference to white immigrants, used the Nazi-related phrase "final solution" while discussing immigration, and blamed the Christchurch shootings on Muslim immigration.

He set up the Fraser Anning party to contest this election, but it hasn't won a single seat.

A minority Liberal government would mean the party will depend on independent candidates to govern. So all eyes are on electorates like Wentworth, formerly the seat of Malcolm Turnbull before he was booted out by his party last year.

Independent candidate Kerryn Phelps won that seat in the subsequent by-election - that was seen as punishment for the Liberals for their repeated ousting of leaders, and was considered a good indicator of the way this election would go.

But she's faced tough competition from Dave Sharma, who, interestingly, removed Liberal party branding from his posters and sold himself as "a modern Liberal".

The ABC has that race at almost neck and neck: 50.1% for Sharma, 49.9% for Phelps.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Former Liberal PM John Howard, who is at the party function in Sydney has spoken to several outlets on the "remarkable" result.

"There was a whiff of 1993 about the last few weeks," says Mr Howard, who led the country from 1996-2007.

He's referring to that year's vote, when then Liberal leader John Hewson lost what was dubbed "the unloseable election".

Of course this time though, that ignominy is reserved for Labor.

It's been a frenetic few hours of vote counting that have stunned most observers. So let's take stock:

• Exit polls initially pointed to a Labor victory, something which had been consistently pointed to in polling in previous months.
• But the situation changed dramatically when it emerged that Scott Morrison's ruling coalition had taken seats off Labor in Tasmania, and captured key seats in Queensland.
• Former PM Tony Abbott, however, was dumped by voters in Warringah, a wealthy Sydney seat he had held since 1994.
• It is still unclear whether Mr Morrison will win enough seats to form a majority government.
• But election analysts say Bill Shorten's Labor party cannot win sufficient seats now to claim victory.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has turned up at the Liberals event in Sydney.

Labor's Bill Shorten is also on the move in Melbourne, heading for his party's less jubilant event.

Reminder: Morrison is on course for a win, but no idea yet on whether majority or minority, or quite what's happened to Labor.

The victorious Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton again lashed out at Labor, the activist movement GetUp and the Greens, whom he accused of running a dirty campaign.

Labor had hoped to claim a high-profile scalp in Dickson, but Mr Dutton appears to have won comfortably.

"Tonight the people of Dickson have rejected negative campaigning," he told several hundred cheering supporters in a victory speech at his campaign headquarters.

He also paid tribute to the Liberal leader Scott Morrison, whom he credited with running a strong campaign against the Labor leader Bill Shorten. "He's been able to put pressure on Bill Shorten, which is what Bill Shorten deserved," he told supporters.

Despite a strong challenge from the left in Labor and the Greens, Josh Frydenberg has won his wealthy seat of Kooyong in Melbourne.

The personable treasurer is currently Scott Morrison's second-in-command, and executed an early pre-election budget in April which focused on tax relief.

"The economic story, the economic message, the economic choice, was what differentiated the parties at this election," he told the ABC.

It appears voter concerns about the economy, and the belief it's in safer hands with the incumbent, have delivered for the Coalition again.

Phil Mercer
BBC News Sydney

Have Scott Morrison's "quiet Australians" delivered this most unexpected result?

They are the legions of undecided voters who are, according to the prime minister, too busy with life to engage in politics outside of election campaigns, and are, by choice, oblivious to the mud-slinging and partisanship of modern politics.

"But they turn up every three years at elections and they take a good, close look at what the options are," Mr Morrison said previously. A strong performance over five weeks by Australia's first Pentecostal prime minister could well have swayed the uncommitted to hand him another term in either majority or minority government.

Image source, Getty Images

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has delivered a victory speech after retaining his seat of Dickson in Queensland.

Mr Dutton was the leading right-wing figure who triggered the ousting of Malcolm Turnbull last year.

Some analysts had suggested he was in danger this election, but like many other predicted government weak spots, the vote has gone the other way.

The Liberal-National members in Queensland have romped home this election, shoring up the conservative support, and dashing Labor's hopes.

Mr Dutton credited the Prime Minister Scott Morrison, saying: "He's distilled our message down to one which the Australian people understand."

Kate Rose
Melbourne

The Labor election night function started with hope, especially with Tony Abbott's scalp being claimed early in Warringah. But it didn't take long for a more sombre mood to descend.

Volunteers in Bill Shorten T-shirts started hugging as they walked past each other, resigned first to not obtaining predicted swings and then to the ABC's projected Coalition victory.

The room found its energy again when Peter Dutton appeared on the giant screens. They booed as he quoted Paul Keating's "sweetest victory of all" line from the 1993 election.

The ABC's calculated 73 seats for the government - still shy of the 76 needed for a majority.

But just over half of the vote has been counted, and several other races are still too close to call.

It's not clear if we'll get a decision tonight on whether it will be a majority or a minority, in which case the Coalition will need to negotiate with an independent.

"At this stage, it is very hard to see anything other than the Coalition staying in government," says ABC election analyst Antony Green.

Gary Nunn
BBC News, Sydney

"We’re almost there," a Liberal party member has just exclaimed. "Shorten is gone," another shouted.

The mood got increasingly buoyant in the room about an hour ago and, as both Sky News and ABC ran breaking news that Labor cannot now form a majority government, glasses started to be filled and tepid toasts have started happening.

Even the most loyal Liberal supporters are expressing surprise that Bill Shorten may yet lose what many saw as the unloseable election, defying polls and confounding analysts.

"Even the ABC has called it," our reporter overhears.

The ABC's election analyst Antony Green - who has never called an election wrong - says the Morrison government has won the election.

Not clear yet if a minority or majority government, but he says the numbers say they can't lose.

The cakes are out at the Labor gathering in Essendon. Looking a little incongruously celebratory right now.

Jay Savage
BBC News Online Australia Editor

While Zali Steggall hails climate as key to her victory over Tony Abbott in Sydney, political observers have begun speculating about whether it may have had the opposite effect in Queensland.

Labor's vote has not been strong in Queensland, a highly diverse state where disparate factors are at play. My colleague Tim McDonald has looked more closely at them here.

The government spent very little time talking about climate change this election, preferring instead to focus on economic issues.

As the count filters through, it's been a surprising series of positive results for the Liberal-National coalition.

The Labor camp is more subdued and watchful, as early results seem to defy polls. There's no indication of the swing they had hoped for, and instead some of their own marginal seats are falling away.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, EPA

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images