Three would-be kingmakers in the new Federal Parliament will tonight hold a meeting to consider their position as Australia faces days of political uncertainty.

The major parties have begun making their pitch to the independents - Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor - who are set to hold the balance of power in the Lower House.

Also in the mix is former intelligence officer and whistleblower Andrew Wilkie who looks likely to win the Tasmanian seat of Denison as an independent.

Both the Coalition and Labor are hoping to form a minority government, but it could be up to a week before the election outcome is clear.

The ABC's election analyst Antony Green says the most likely outcome is 72 seats for Labor, 73 for the Coalition, one for the Greens and four independents.

Mr Katter, Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor all have a background in the National Party but they will not necessarily back the Coalition, while Mr Wilkie has previously stood for the Greens.

The three will hold a phone hook up at 8.30pm AEST.

"Many times I've gone to bed as a cockle doodle doo and woke up the next morning as a feather duster - this might be one of those times," Mr Katter said.

Now the major parties will have to start horse-trading, and both Mr Katter and Mr Windsor have named broadband as a key issue.

Mr Katter, the independent Member for Kennedy in north Queensland, says broadband and more investment in ethanol are important.

"The issue of broadband is very, very important for us and a privatised broadband - I mean, please, don't even talk about it," he said.

"Privatised Telstra's been absolutely disastrous for rural Australia."

And independent Member for the northern New South Wales seat of New England, Mr Windsor, agrees the issue of NBN is "one of great significance".

"There's probably more people who supported a national rollout of the broadband network than didn't in terms of the way the nation voted," he said.

"They're the sorts of things that obviously come into the mix.

"There will be policy issues involved in this, but the main issue for me is the stability of the nation and to see if we can actually form a working government, that can work with the Senate for the betterment of all people.

"Otherwise we'll just end up back at the polls and I don't think that's terribly good for anybody."

Pitch begins

Mr Katter would not be drawn on details of who he had talked to from the major parties, but Mr Windsor says he has spoken to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

"I've had two very kind phone calls - one from the Prime Minister early in the evening just to congratulate me and then about 1:15am the Leader of the Opposition rang to congratulate me as well," Mr Windsor said.

"Obviously we did mention if there was a hung parliament that there may have to be some discussion."

Mr Windsor says he and the other independents will start talks as soon as possible.

"The three country independents anyway, we've agreed to sit down - and we'll be talking later today by phone," he said.

"That may mean some travel somewhere tomorrow to talk to other people, but I think we've just got to sit down, see how the numbers come down and then go into some sort of process.

"Part of the phone call will be ... to try and design a process that actually leads to something that's stable in terms of governance and can work.

"We're going to make sure whatever it is it can work, because we're talking about the government of Australia here, not who won a prize on a night."

But Mr Windsor says the independents will not necessarily stick together as a bloc.

"I can't speak for them - I'm not interested in a bloc, but I'm very interested in talking to them because they have views - I know where they stand on some of them," he said.

"But I think three minds will probably be greater than one in trying to wrestle with some of the issues."

Mr Katter also says he expects to talk with his fellow crossbench MPs soon.

"We have agreed that we will simply close the door, sit down and have a long conversation with each other," Mr Katter said.

"The three of us, maybe the four of us - if there's a fourth one - and we'll come to a conclusion through that process and I think that's a responsible course of action on our part.

"We get on very well together - we work very closely together.

"We have similar backgrounds and we've agreed that we simply book in a room, close the door and not be taken advantage of by all you cunning media people and determine a responsible course of conduct to which we can move forward."

But both Mr Windsor and Mr Katter have made their issues with Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce known.

"I don't deal with fools terribly lightly, and I think under any definition the man's a fool," Mr Windsor said.

Mr Katter says while Senator Joyce has shown "incredible unfortunateness", he is not interested in "payback".

"But I don't think Tony or myself are into retribution - that's not where we're going," he said.

"It'll be the complete opposite of where we want to go here, but they were the people who made those decisions."