The sun scorched Sydneysiders as they turned out to vote, with tempers flaring across as protesters clashed with the man who will lead the country.
In what's likely to be his last day as opposition leader, Tony Abbott was heckled by protesters as he and his family went to vote at Freshwater Surf Club in heart of his Warringah electorate.
"F*** Tony Abbott. F*** that s***," one women said as she passed by media waiting for him to vote.
Another woman held up a sign: "TONY ABBOTT, SEXIST, RACIST, BIGOT".
As unseasonably warm spring temperatures climbed to over 30.5 degrees, and with the smell of polling-booth sausage sizzles thick in the air, other protesters took a less abrasive approach.
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About 100 members of the Knit You Revolt! group unfurled a giant red pair of budgie smugglers in front of the polling booths in Manly.
"Budgie smugglers more threat to Australia than people smugglers," said the writing on their four-metre banana hammock.
But it wasn't all bad news for Mr Abbott.
After meeting him at the Freshwater Surf Club, 66-year-old Audrey Pattison described him as a "lovely man".
Across the harbour, in Health Minister Tanya Plibersek's electorate of Sydney, voters expressed their frustration with both sides of politics.
"We've all got incredible fatigue," said a woman at Erskineville Public School.
"We've had the pro-Julia people, the pro-Kevin people and the Liberal party all campaigning at us for six years."
Firefighter Simon Bracht, 34, was also critical of the two major parties.
"They haven't handled themselves well over the last couple of weeks. There's been a lot of mistakes," he said.
Another woman, aged 58, is defecting to the Greens after decades of backing the coalition.
"I know it's a huge change but it's just my protest. It's all I can do to protest," she told AAP.
After voting in his electorate of North Sydney, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said Mr Abbott had done an outstanding job in proving he would be a better prime minister than Kevin Rudd.
"It has been the most disciplined campaign I have ever been a part of," he said.
As the votes are counted across NSW the focus will be on the several marginal Labor seats in western Sydney.
Despite a dreadful interview that went worldwide and his absence from the campaign, Liberal candidate Jaymes Diaz is expected to give sitting ALP member Michelle Rowland a serious challenge in the seat of Greenway, where billboards on Saturday played his infamous "six points" interview on loop.
Greens candidate Cate Faehrmann said she's hopeful of claiming a NSW Senate seat.
"We are in with a strong chance," she told AAP, but added One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was still in with a shot "because of the many micro parties running and all of the deals."
