Costings back to bite Abbott

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is likely to face pressure from his own coalition colleagues to agree with a key demand from kingmaker independent MPs.

With no side having the numbers to form government in their own right, re-elected rural independents Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott hold the key to forming government.

All three have demanded that both major parties have Treasury cost their policies.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has agreed but Mr Abbott has refused, instead insisting they rely on modelling from a private accounting firm.

Mr Katter said Mr Abbott's "intransigence" on this issue would make it harder for the independents to support him becoming prime minister.

"Now if he looks so bad and he's got someone to hide, it makes it much more difficult for us to give him the gong to become prime minister," he told ABC Television.

Mr Katter said Mr Abbott's move looked like an attempt to force another election.

"If you think the Australian people are going to put up with this sort of tomfoolery, you got another thing coming," he said.

The independent MPs have also demanded that the leaders guarantee Australia will not face another election until 2013.

Caretaker PM Gillard has given a written guarantee of this, and Abbott has also given his assurance that any government he forms will serve a full term.

Counting so far shows the coalition with 72 seats, compared with 71 for Labor in the first hung parliament since 1940.

With the Liberal Party tipped to snatch the outer Perth seat of Hasluck from Labor, only two seats are still in doubt.

A new Galaxy poll shows that 52 per cent of 600 voters across the independent MPs' electorates of Lyne (Oakeshott), Kennedy (Katter) and Windsor (New England) want their leader to back the Coalition.

However, 77 per cent said national interests should take precedence in their leaders' decision.

Labor's chances of retaining the seat of Brisbane are improving with the Liberal National Party's slight lead almost halving on Wednesday.

But in the marginal Victorian seat of Corangamite, held by Labor, the Liberal Party has pared back the ALP's lead.

Former intelligence whistle blower Andrew Wilkie is expected to win the Hobart-based seat of Denison while the Greens have won the formerly traditional Labor seat of Melbourne.

Apology to Wilkie

Mr Abbott has apologised to Andrew Wilkie for the coalition's treatment of him when he resigned from his national security post over the Iraq War.

Mr Wilkie resigned from the Office of National Assessments in 2003 amid fears that evidence about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was being exaggerated to justify military action.

He now looks certain to become the fourth independent in the new parliament and has received calls from the leaders of both major parties seeking meetings.

Mr Wilkie said he and Mr Abbott had shared a "very pleasant exchange".

"He noted the way I had been treated over the Iraq War by the then Howard government," he said.

"He said that although he was still a strong supporter of the Iraq War, he did apologise for the way I was treated by some members of the government at the time."

Mr Wilkie said that although he felt vilified at the time, he regarded such issues as "ancient history" and said they would have no bearing on his decision to support a minority government from either party.