Pocock declared elected in ACT Senate race

VANQUISHED senator Zed Seselja has congratulated his political rivals Katy Gallagher and his successor in the second ACT Senate seat David Pocock on their election.

“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,” he said.

Seselja has represented the ACT in the Senate for the past nine years over three terms.

“It was a great honour to be the first Federal Liberal representative from Canberra to serve in the Ministry,” he said.

“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.”

He said he was proud of the impact the Coalition had in 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,” the former senator said.

In reflecting on his achievements the former senator said: “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 2000 staff away from the Tuggeranong town centre and fought to ensure the then-Department of Immigration and its 4000 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.”