Politics is brutal.
Yesterday’s ACT election saw Family First’s Elizabeth Kikkert lose her seat in the Legislative Assembly.
Her loss was part of a Liberal party campaign to rid their party and politics of clear conservative voices, not unlike the unjust expulsions of Victorian Liberals Moira Deeming and Bernie Finn.
Elizabeth had always been a courageous voice for family, faith, life and freedom in the nation’s most anti-family and anti-faith jurisdiction.
A month from the election, the Canberra Liberals booted her from the ticket.
Family First was pleased Elizabeth could find a home with us. We did everything we could to get her re-elected so her pro-family voice could be kept in parliament.
Family First supporters in the ACT and from around the nation rallied and donated generously.
We were able to run a targeted campaign into her electorate of Ginninderra that went over and above our normal capabilities.
But 4.7 per cent of the vote (as of this morning’s count), while enough to elect a Family First Upper House member in South Australia, New South Wales and possibly Victoria, was not quite enough under the ACT’s Hare Clark system.
Family First achieved a very credible 2pc of the vote in two of the other four Canberra electorates where we did not have the name recognition of a sitting MLA nor the resources we were able to channel into Ginninderra.
This is testament to the courage of our candidates who put their names out publicly on ballot papers with the Family First brand in a jurisdiction that prides itself on being “progressive” - if abortion-to-birth, unsustainable debt, high taxes, legal drugs, forced acquisitions of church hospitals and gung-ho support for child gender transitions is “progressive”.
While the results are encouraging for a political party that has never contested elections in the ACT (a bit of history was made), it is clear not all people who share our values are voting for us - yet.
Politics and campaigning is hard. It is going to take time and significant resources to get our message out.
People simply don’t know we exist and a large part of that is apathy. But even more worryingly, it is ignorance to the threats we face from a political class that is steering us in destructive economic and social directions.
A wake-up is also needed among churches, which sadly are not aware of the danger they and their people are in from an increasingly anti-Christian secular elite who hold the levers of power in this nation
Beyond people of faith, who are the canaries in the coal-mine in the grand radical left political experiment being waged, ordinary Australians are also oblivious to the fact that the culture wars are real and have consequences for cost of living, parents’ rights and basic freedoms.
Elizabeth’s loss is a blow, Australian politics desperately needs people of her calibre.
We wish her and her family all the best for the future. Their hard work in the campaign honoured Family First’s donors and volunteers who got behind her.
Our volunteers, donors and candidates have done a noble thing at this ACT election.
Next Saturday is Queensland’s turn where we have 59 candidates standing from Cairns to Coolangatta.
We are raising a political movement for the values that matter because we have a vision for a better future. There are no short cuts – this is a long-term battle.
It was encouraging to be in a room full of people at last night’s Family First election party at the Raiders Club in Belconnen determined to continue the fight.