DECLARATION OF SENATE POLL

_{14 December, 2007}

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ADDRESS AT DECLARATION OF THE POLL
FRIDAY 14TH DECEMBER 2007
(as delivered)

Well thanks very much Anne and good morning ladies and gentlemen.

Firstly I wanted to pay a tribute to that cross section of Australians who constitute the membership of the Liberal Party in Queensland.  It is to them of course that I owe the fact that I have been elected first today.

They are a great group of people and I have some fear for them for the immediate future.  They certainly have a commitment, a resilience, a dedication to see good government in both Australia and Queensland and I do wonder where the future will take us.  As we are now in opposition it will be our job to hold the new government accountable to the things that they did promise.

I want to congratulate Anne first of all, you and your team and confirm what you have said.  Right from the very beginning of this election your staff right throughout Queensland have done a magnificent job from the preparation, to the pre-polling to the actual day and then the count, which in many electorates was very, very tense.
But all of your people showed a great professionalism and dedication and I do congratulate you.  We are indeed fortunate in Australia to have an independent Commission who can ensure that the wishes of the Australian public are recorded properly.

I also congratulate my running mate Sue Boyce, a very, very fresh new face with fresh new ideas if I can pinch that term, and I look forward to working with Sue in the parliament in the next six years.

Also to my running mate Ron Boswell, often described in many places as a veteran but I know Ron as a man of great commitment and dedication, a guy who really and genuinely believes in the issues he takes on.  I don’t always agree with him, but whatever Ron takes on he does with commitment.

The future I think for me and those of us in the Liberal Party in Queensland will be to look at rebuilding the trust of the Australian public.  I think we do need to avoid forever the arrogance which I think did creep into the Federal Government in the last term of parliament.

This election saw the first joint ticket for the Liberal and National parties for some 30 years and I am delighted that between Sue and Ron and I we did achieve a result which was acceptable to the coalition.  However, I do make it clear that I always opposed the joint ticket and I think it will be the last joint ticket.  Next time of course we have retiring Senators Mason, Brandis and Trood and they will be on a ticket.
They will be promoting a view of life that is coherent and cohesive and that is something that the Liberal Party will have to look forward to.

The Liberal Party has opportunities following the election up and down the coast in seats like Flynn and Dawson and Leichhardt where we as a coalition have lost those but there are opportunities opening for the Liberal Party in the future.

Having said that, and having said that there should be separate Senate tickets, can I also say that it’s my strong belief that there should be one party only in Queensland, one Liberal Conservative Party based on the individual, based on free enterprise, based on a social and environmental consciousness that does, I think, represent the sort of policies that have done so much for Australia in the last eleven years.

I do, in paying tribute to others, want to congratulate as well John Hogg and Senator Claire Moore and their colleague who I haven’t yet had the opportunity of meeting.  I do want to also make mention of all the other candidates who have offered themselves in this election, unsuccessfully as it’s turned out but it’s tremendous to see in Australia, that we do have such a wide variety of choices in marking our ballot papers on election day.

It would be remiss at this stage, perhaps not to lament but to mark the passing of Andrew Bartlett.  Andrew again never said a great deal that I actually agreed with, but he is a person of great commitment and great enthusiasm and his absence from the Senate will be missed and I say that as someone who has seen Andrew operate over a long period of time.

Finally Anne, can I say that it will be my goal as a Senator, as I the only Senator elected today who doesn’t come from Brisbane, to ensure that the new Government does not become capital city centric and to make sure that those of us who live and work in rural and regional Queensland and indeed rural and regional Australia, are not forgotten.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as the south of our continent becomes naturally drier over the next decades, our future lies in the north of Australia.  In the north of Australia there is an abundant water supply in the Ord and the Derby River, in Papua New Guinea, in the Flinders River in the Burdekin to name just a few.  There is a lot of available land up in the north and the natural resources of the north are the resources that actually create the wealth of our country.  And it will be my goal in the next six years to ensure that all Australians recognise just what a significant contribution the north of Australia makes to the economy and welfare and wellbeing of Australia and to ensure in a sort of a way that those of us who live in the north do get recognised for the contribution we do make.  I see a big future for the north.

Anne, again, with congratulations to you and to the other candidates who are elected. I end my speech with an apology and that is because I have a plane to catch in about 35 minutes, I have to go.  It is rude to not to listen to the other candidates but I will hear of what they say and congratulations to all of them.  I seek their forgiveness. Thanks to all of the candidates for their goodwill during the course of the election.

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