Union officials buoyed by a successful election campaign in Eden-Monaro have vowed to target swinging voters before the territory election in October.
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Incumbent Peter Hendy conceded defeat in Eden-Monaro on Saturday night after a 6.5 per cent swing to Labor, which ensured ex-army lawyer Mike Kelly would return to Parliament after losing his seat in 2013.
Union volunteers from Canberra and the NSW south coast were transported to more conservative rural towns of Yass, Tumut and Tumbarumba on Saturday, which were absorbed in a federal redistribution.
The redistribution was meant to have made the seat safer for the Liberal Party with Batemans Bay and Moruya moved to the seat of Gilmore, which is one of 10 federal seats still undecided.
Unions ACT secretary Alex White said similar campaign tactics would be used during the ACT election campaign with volunteers and union members to target swing voters.
"We concentrated our volunteers quite heavily in those rural areas of Yass and Tumut as we knew there had not been a strong campaign presence there for some time and they were traditionally conservative areas," he said.
"We made sure we were only talking to the people whose votes were up for grabs."
Mr White said the union movement turned its attention to Eden-Monaro 18 months ago and deliberately targeted voters through personal engagement and data analytics.
"You need to talk to thousands of people to do this ," he said.
"You also have to have the right person talking to them. If they were concerned about health care then we would send a volunteer nurse to talk to them about Medicare.
"If it was education, we would get a volunteer teacher to talk about Gonski."
Eden-Monaro is well known for having been won by the party that formed government in every election since 1972. But the result of the federal election is unlikely to be known until at least Tuesday, when vote counting resumes.
Mr White said the Canberra Liberal's focus on light rail during the election was ineffective given most ACT voters were able to differentiate between territory and federal issues.
The party used pictures of the tram in campaign material, urging voters not to vote for ACT Labor senator and former chief minister Katy Gallagher who signed a power-sharing agreement with the Greens to deliver light rail.
"The decision to campaign on light rail was also remarkable given the federal government had already shown their support for the project," Mr White said.
On Saturday night, ACT Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury warned many Canberrans would suffer from "voter fatigue" by the time they cast their ballot in October.
"With the ACT election campaign to start soon many Canberrans would be justified in thinking 'didn't we just go to the polls?".
Mr White was not concerned by the ACT election campaign potentially coinciding with the same-sex-marriage plebiscite debate, should the Coalition government be returned.
"I can't see Turnbull having the political authority to hold that plebiscite as it's clear he is a hostage in his own party," he said.
"I think he knows it would be terminal and if he wants to survive politically he would have to betray that promise."
