Zed Seselja, Liberal Senator from 2013 to 2022, lost his seat this morning to David Pocock, the ACT’s first Independent Senator. Here follows Mr Seselja’s concession speech:

For the last nine years, I have had the immense honour of serving the people of the ACT as their Government Senator. I thank the men and women of the Liberal Party for putting their faith in me as their candidate for the Senate for the last four elections, and I am grateful to the women and men of the ACT for giving me the honour to be their Senator for three terms.

I extend my congratulations to Katy Gallagher and David Pocock on the honour of being elected to represent the ACT in the Australian Senate, and to Senator Gallagher on her appointment as Australia’s Finance Minister. There is no greater privilege than serving your community and your country. It is a heavy responsibility.

I am proud of the impact the Coalition has had on delivering for not only our nation, but also delivering far more investment in Canberra than any previous Commonwealth Government since self-government.

We leave an unemployment rate in the ACT at 3.1 per cent (compared to 4 per cent when we came to office) and nationally at 3.9 per cent (compared to 5.7 per cent when we came to office). We have steered Australia through the most difficult crisis since World War II with some of the best outcomes in the world.

I have always fought for a better deal for Canberra, and for policies that would have real and positive impacts on the lives on Canberrans.

I secured changes to Commonwealth planning restrictions that allowed for residential development of West Tuggeranong, the Molonglo Valley, and the CSIRO Ginninderra site to increase supply and improve housing affordability.

I successfully fought to stop the proposed move of the Department of Social Services and its some 2,000 staff away from the Tuggeranong town centre, and fought to ensure the then-Department of Immigration and its 4,000 staff remained in Belconnen.

I also secured the relocation of Defence Housing Australia to Gungahlin, to ensure the growing town centre had its first Commonwealth Government agency.

I was pleased to deliver major changes to thresholds for support for first homebuyers in Canberra (from $500,000 to $750,000) which will see many thousands of Canberrans benefit.

In just the past three and a half years alone, I helped secure more than $2.2 billion in infrastructure investment in our city, including the redevelopment of the Australian War Memorial to ensure the service of all our brave men and women can continue to be honoured appropriately, major capital upgrades and contributions to the National Gallery, National Archives, Museum of Australian Democracy, and National Film and Sound Archives, and significant upgrades to key roads and bridges across the territory to ensure Canberrans get home sooner and safer. These include but are not limited to the Monaro Highway, Barton Highway, Gundaroo Drive, William Hovell Drive, Athllon Drive, Tuggeranong Parkway, Pialligo Avenue, Molonglo Valley Bridge, and Commonwealth Avenue bridge. It was pleasing to deliver funding to reopen the AIS Arena.

Our Government delivered substantial increases to health funding for the ACT, including more than doubling our hospital funding from $202 million per annum when we came to office to over $500 million this year. In addition to this, we funded new ICU beds at Canberra Hospital, a residential eating disorder clinic, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and two new headspace youth mental health facilities.

We listed countless medicines on the PBS to ensure access which otherwise was too expensive for most. I was pleased to be a champion for our Type 1 Diabetes community, and be part of a government which delivered major improvements to the quality of life of people with this condition, most particularly investing over $300 million in continuous glucose monitoring.

In education, we delivered more money for ACT schools, and I fought particularly hard to make sure that non-government schools in Canberra weren’t disadvantaged by the new Gonski model by ensuring a much fairer system of assessing parents’ capacity to pay was developed, rather than the unfair SES model which significantly disadvantaged Canberra.

Whilst not an achievement that comes with a large price tag, securing and establishing a compensation fund to ensure the victims of Mr Fluffy who developed an asbestos related illness after living in a Mr Fluffy home, and their families, have access to fair compensation is something I am particularly proud of.

I had the privilege to serve under Prime Ministers Turnbull and Morrison as a member of the Ministry, the first time a Federal Liberal representative from the ACT has had this honour. I held the roles of Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs, Assistant Minister for Science, Jobs and Innovation, Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters, and most recently Minister for International Development and the Pacific. It was a great honour to be the first Federal Liberal representative from Canberra to serve in the Ministry.

There are countless achievements I am proud of throughout my time in these portfolios. I am particularly proud of progressing the issue of adoption and permanency for Australia’s most vulnerable children through national agreements on permanency. I had the honour of delivering Australia’s Multicultural Statement and working on continual improvements to our incredibly generous settlement services program which also incorporated the additional 12,000 places for Syrian Refugees.

I’m proud we made significant changes to the way Cooperatives and Mutuals could be financially sustainable and raise capital, to ensure that these organisations could raise capital in the same way investor-owned corporations could without sacrificing their member-owned structure and remain competitive and sustainable.

I am also particularly proud of implementing reforms to secure long-term funding for the important work of homelessness providers and developing the Government response to the Australian Charities and Not-for Profits Commission review. When COVID hit, I worked side-by-side with the sector to ensure charities had access to JobKeeper to ensure they could continue their important work. I oversaw the largest aid spend in history by Australia or any other nation in the Pacific, and the rollout of over 40 million COVID-19 vaccines to our nearest neighbours across the Pacific and South-East Asia, and implemented the most significant reforms to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme since its establishment, with over 20,000 participants currently. I worked closely with regional counterparts as Australia led and coordinated the international humanitarian response efforts following the devastation caused by the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano and subsequent tsunami in Tonga.

To our supporters, I know the loss of Government federally, and the loss of the ACT Senate seat is a bitter blow. I also know that in politics, things change very quickly. People will write off the Liberal Party as they did in 2007, but we will be back here in the ACT and nationally. I congratulate Peter Dutton on taking on the leadership of the Liberal Party, and I’m confident he will quickly restore our fortunes and return our party to Government.

I was proud to fight for both conservative and liberal principles in my time in public life. The centrality of the family, freedom of speech, religion, association, and enterprise. For the sanctity of human life. For lower taxes and strong national defence. For small and family businesses.

There are some who argue that I should have abandoned some of these values as a way to win more votes. These critics ignore the fact that at this election, those in my party in similar seats who had very different views to mine nonetheless suffered much larger swings than what occurred in the ACT. They ignore the fact that under my leadership, the Liberal Party gained the most seats in the ACT Assembly in its history. But most importantly, following this prescription of rolling over to the left would have been both wrong in principle and ultimately futile electorally.

In political life, we must stand up for values and principles. It’s not always easy to stand up to the Labor/Green Left in Canberra, but it’s important that there is a political movement which does.

Policy responses will change over time, but they ultimately must be guided by foundational principles which have stood the test of time. I thank sincerely those who have supported the Liberal Party and myself during my time in political life. The staff, the volunteers, the party officials, the donors, and the supporters. While it is difficult now, I’m convinced that better times lie ahead.

Finally, I thank my family. They are the most important people in my life, and I’m pleased that as we end our journey in politics, our adventure together as a family will continue. I look forward to continuing to find new ways to serve my community, and support those closest to me.