Russell Broadbent (Monash, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At six o'clock last night in my office we quietly celebrated the closing of the polls in 2004, which saw me re-elected to the parliament after being defeated twice before and being a oncer twice—and the member at the table was a participant in one of those election campaigns. It has been an honour to serve the people of McMillan and Monash, accordingly, in that time. Of course, in my 25 years in the parliament, I served as the member for Corinella for three years as well.

It's been a very difficult time, in that two great achievements were, firstly, being on the wrong side of every leadership ballot for the whole 25 years because I supported the leader, and, secondly, being in a place where policy was particularly important to me and I was prepared to speak out on those issues, no matter who the government of the day was. I've never stepped back from the time that I spent in this place in the alternative, and I look forward to continuing in that role.