I am honoured and humbled to have been re-elected as a Liberal senator for Victoria at the 2022 Federal Election.
I thank so many Victorians for placing their faith and trust in me. As a regional senator based in Geelong, I will continue to give it my all as a representative of some 6.6 million Victorians.
I greatly respect the democratic will of the Australian people. I congratulate Anthony Albanese on becoming the 31st Prime Minister of Australia and wish him and his Labor team well.
Of course, the election result has been a very difficult one for the Liberal Party. We have lost a number of exceptional Liberal members of parliament including in Victoria.
I wish to acknowledge, in particular, the leadership of Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg. Since 1945, no government has faced a greater peacetime challenge. I believe history will judge the achievements of our government well. There is much about which to be proud which will form the basis of the rebuild of the Liberal Party, alongside the lessons of our defeat.
I congratulate the extraordinary efforts of our Liberal candidates with whom I worked closely as patron senator – Stephanie Asher in Corangamite, Manish Patel in Corio, Ben Green in Ballarat, Darin Schade in Bendigo and John Fletcher in Gorton. I congratulate the Labor MPs in each of these seats on their re-election. I also thank my staff and our wonderful Liberal volunteers who worked so tirelessly during the campaign.
I will be working hard to hold the Labor government to account including to ensure it delivers on its commitments in my patron seats.
To that end, I call on Labor to match the Liberal Party’s election commitments including to Feed Me Bellarine, the Bancoora and Torquay surf life saving clubs, fixing mobile black spots across our region and new headspace centres in Bannockburn and Corio where they are most needed. I trust that Libby Coker won’t attempt to stop construction of stage 1 of the North Bellarine Aquatic and Leisure Centre which is now well underway.
22 May 2022