Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise and talk about the Saturday election in Victoria, where it wasn't a 'greenslide' so much as a 'natslide'. The Victorian National Party had our most successful results since the Second World War, and I am proud to stand here in the Australian Senate and say the party that is over a century old has gotten rid of rural Independents, a failed experiment in regional Victoria.

Our strong values, positive vision for the future and our pragmatic approach to policy has seen our party room, at the Victorian level, significantly grow. I want to congratulate Peter Walsh and our whole team back at home—all our volunteers—for making that happen. Congratulations to Annabel Cleeland in Euroa and Kim O'Keefe, a former mayor from Shepparton. To Azin and the whole multicultural community at Shepparton, thank you for voting National. Jade Benham, of strong Italian heritage, is going to do a fabulous job in Mildura. There is Gaelle Broad in Bendigo, a strong National with strong values, and Martin Cameron, the only guy in the new crew, a local footballer and tradie down in Morwell, where the Latrobe Valley rejected the Labor Party's renationalisation of the SEC and voted for the National Party in that seat.

I am particularly proud that, as a conservative party and a party that doesn't resile from our conservative values, at a Victorian level we have sent our federal representatives and our state parliamentary representatives—we have 50 per cent female representation at a federal and state level. There is not a quota girl amongst us; we were all preselected by our party, and we are all going to do an amazing job on behalf of the rural and regional communities that have sent us to Spring Street and to Canberra.