Independent Kerryn Phelps has widened her lead as counting continues in the Wentworth by-election.
Dr Phelps was on 51.06 per cent of the two-candidate preferred vote, ahead of Liberal candidate Dave Sharma by 1572 votes as of Wednesday afternoon.
The win would put Dr Phelps in the rare position of holding two public offices.
She was elected to the City of Sydney Council in September 2016 and said during the campaign for Wentworth she intended to stay on.
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While state laws prevent NSW MPs from being councillors at the same time, there's nothing to stop Federal parliamentarians holding the dual roles.
But on Wednesday, Dr Phelps didn't respond to questions about her future on the council.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Hornsby Mayor Philip Ruddock, a former Howard government minister, had advised Dr Phelps that it would be difficult to perform both roles well.
"If you are going to do the job properly, there are exceedingly heavy demands; the demands are insatiable," Cr Ruddock told the SMH.
Abbott says Turnbull could have turned it around
Electoral officials on Wednesday were counting postal votes, and conducting a small provisional vote count.
It is understood the Australian Electoral Commission is not ready to declare the seat.
Processing and roll checking of arriving postal votes, pre-poll declaration votes, and provisional votes continues.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Tony Abbott said the former Wentworth MP, Malcolm Turnbull, could have turned around the vote in the final week of the campaign if he had intervened.
"I was disappointed by the studied silence of the former member," Mr Abbott told 2GB radio.
"It would have helped if the former member had thrown his would-be successor a bit of encouragement in those final few days."
Several senior Liberals have said the polling gap between Dr Phelps and Mr Sharma had narrowed in the final week from 59-41 to 51-49 in two-candidate terms.
Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne expressed confidence the party could win back the seat at a general election due by May 2019.
"There's lots of examples of by-elections that have been lost by governments and then subsequently returned the following election - like Canberra, like the seat in Wollongong that was lost to the Greens by Labor during the Keating government," Mr Pyne told radio 5AA.
"The important thing is politicians have got to stop talking about politics like it's a parlour game."
