LIBERAL VALUES MUST GUIDE OUR REBUILD

So many of you gave so much of yourselves during the Federal election campaign.

I want to pay tribute to every one of you for your dedication and support.

Many things have and will be said about the election campaign but there is one thing that is not in doubt – you – our grassroots supporters gave it everything you had.

I spent time at a number of different pre-poll places in the days leading up to election day.

The number of volunteers we had putting in the hard work for hours on end was nothing less than inspiring.

Many more came out in the hours leading up to election day to saturate booths with Liberal signage.

Even more followed by manning those booths on election day, getting the Liberal message to as many people as possible.

So, in whatever capacity you helped I again want to pay tribute to you and thank you most sincerely for your efforts.

To our wonderful candidates here in Western Australia I also want to thank you for the herculean efforts you and your campaign teams put in.

For many of you the hard work has lasted for many, many months - and in some cases several years.

The hours of doorknocking, standing by the side of the road sign waving, handing out campaign material, talking to people and every other campaign activity make it a full-time job and then some.

Your efforts are deeply appreciated.

I know the results were not what we wanted, but that was not through lack of effort on your part.

We did however weather the storm better in Western Australia than our Liberal colleagues in every other State.

As of Friday last week the two party preferred swing to Labor in Western Australia was sitting at 0.6% - significantly lower than anywhere else.

The swings in the other States were: Victoria 1.4%; Tasmania 8.2%; SA 4.9%; Queensland 3.1%; NSW 3.2%. The national swing to Labor was 2.7%.

So, the next best State had more than twice the swing to Labor compared to Western Australia and we were more than three times ahead of the national swing.

We had strong swings to the Liberal party in the seats of Canning (4.6%); Durack (5.5%) and O’Connor (7.3%).

I congratulate Andrew Hastie, Melissa Price and Rick Wilson for these outstanding results. And of course we saw the re-election of Senators O’Sullivan and Brockman.

In Forrest Ben Small fought a great battle to hold the seat that came under attack from a Teal candidate.

In Bullwinkel, there was a 2.9% swing to the Liberal party in what started as a notionally Labor seat. Matt Moran and his team fought an incredibly energetic campaign. Unfortunately, the contest in Bullwinkel was complicated by the nature of the three-cornered contest against the National Party, and it appears the flow of those preferences were a significant factor in the final outcome.

Jan Norberger worked tirelessly in Pearce to gain a 2.3% swing towards him.

Tom White in Curtin ended with 41.2% of the primary vote compared to 32.9% for the sitting member. Unfortunately, his battle was against the Teal, Labor and the Greens combined.

And to Felicia Adeniyi, David Goode, Claire Moody, Sean Ayres, Vince Connelly, Mic Fels, Tait Marston, Howard Ong, Susanna Panaia, Trish Botha and Jennifer Matthews – thank you for your outstanding work.

We deliberately ran a localised WA campaign here and that helped us weather the storm better than in other States.

Our message here was focused on WA issues and we ran WA specific advertising. That was something I was a strong advocate of after the 2022 election.

Those WA issues included – Keep the Sheep, Nature positive/mining negative, the North West Shelf gas hub decision and the Sout West wind farm issue.

On election night, a senior Labor figure in the east acknowledged to me that we had run a strong local campaign in Western Australia.

These WA issues will not be forgotten as we hold the Albanese Government to account for the next three years in Opposition.

What I vow to you is, that as a party, we will spend time analysing the results and seeking to better understand what the Australian people are saying to us.

We need to listen to voters right across our great nation and learn lessons from this election. This will take some time.

But, if there is a lesson that we can take out of this election immediately I think it is that we need to focus on our values and beliefs.

I think Australians will better understand our policies if we make them much more aware of our values and beliefs.

Those beliefs are based in freedom – the rights and freedoms of all people.

This has been the case since the Liberal party was founded and is just as relevant as it always was.

Those freedoms include freedom of thought, worship, speech and association.

We believe in smaller government that minimises interference in people’s daily lives and maximises individuals and private sector initiative.

We believe in individual freedom and free enterprise.

We will champion small businesses and farmers. We want to do everything to help small businesses succeed in this country.

We have to be the party of lower taxes. Australians can not be burdened with higher taxes and more regulation which strangles their ability to get ahead.

The future prosperity of both Western Australia and the nation will rely on us as a party regrouping, rebuilding and offering voters genuine hope for the future.

Each generation deserves to be able to aspire to prosperity greater than those who have gone before and Liberal values can deliver that.

But to do that there is much hard work ahead and it will not be easy.

While our values are timeless, we need to come up with the policies that appeal to modern Australians.

Then we have to be able to explain those policies to Australians and have them not only understand the policies but the values that underpin them.

We have to be the party of hope, aspiration and prosperity.

And we have to be able to attract and put forward candidates who reflect and connect with modern Australia.

There has been much talk about quotas in the past week and I’d like to give you my views on the issue.

I don’t believe in quotas.

I am someone who believes in the best person for the job.

I believe we should set aspirational targets and then do everything possible, short of quotas, to achieve those targets.

But it's also no longer just about whether or not it's a male or female split.

You also have to have a look at the demographics of Australia and whether or not the party represents that demographic mix.

And to bring it back to our values, one of those is a belief in equal opportunity for all Australians.

Equal opportunity is different to equal outcomes and I think that’s what is being missed in this debate.

The road ahead will not be easy and there will be bumps along the way.

Rebuilding is never easy but if we don’t take on this difficult task now we will find ourselves disappointed further in the future.

Robust debate within the party is a good thing and I want to hear as many views from you as possible.

But I also want all of us to understand that we will be in a stronger position if we work together as much as possible for the greater good.

There are always competing ideas in an organisation like ours and we need to have those debates and let those ideas be aired.

But when the time comes to unite we need to be able to do that in a way that has our opponents in awe of us.

On a brighter note, we welcome to the Liberal Party Room Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Thank you to the many Liberal Party members for sending your best wishes on this announcement.

Senator Nampjinpa Price is a great Australian – both brave and principled in the stands she takes.

Jacinta helped change the course of this nation by her strong stance against the Albanese government’s divisive voice referendum. I know she will continue to fight for all disadvantaged Australians.

I am confident Jacinta will have a profound impact on our nation for many years to come.

She is exactly the calibre of person we need in our party room as we chart the course back from the election loss.

Jacinta’s common sense, practical and pragmatic outlook will be much valued by myself and my colleagues.

I look forward to working even more closely with this great Australian in the future.

Once again thank you for all the work, and effort you all put into the campaign and everything you have done for the party in the past.

I hope you will stand with us into the future and help take us into a new era with a new strengthened belief in the Liberal Party, what we stand for and what we can deliver for the Australian people.

Our nation’s future depends on it.