Liberal Senator looks to the future - ABC Online

Updated February 25, 2013 10:05:01

ACT Liberal Senator Gary Humphries has confirmed he will not attempt further Liberal preselection or contest this year's Federal election in any form.

Senator Humphries was dumped at the weekend from the top spot on the Canberra Liberals' senate ticket, in favour of former ACT Liberal Leader Zed Seselja.

Senator Humphries says he will not run for the second spot on the Liberal senate ticket.

"Having me at number two on the ticket presents a distraction for our number one candidate," Senator Humphries said.

"I don't think it would be appropriate to have a retiring Senator at number two.

"There's too much danger that people would decide to reorganise the ticket as they saw fit and that's obviously not helpful in getting a message across to the party voters that we want them to vote in a certain order."

Internal dispute

The Senator says he was angry at the internal process where many party members were denied a preselection vote.

"I thought there were things very seriously wrong with the preselection process.

"On Saturday itself a large number of people arrived to vote, having been informed that they were preselectors and were told without any warning that they were not preselectors."

One of those refused a preselection vote was former ACT senator Margaret Reid.

However Senator Humphries says he will accept the result of the Saturday's vote.

"The party has spoken," he said.

"Flawed or not, the party has spoken and it is time for me to move on."

Looking forward

His wife Cathy Humphries says its been a stressful few weeks for the whole family.

"It's been fairly gut wrenching, and you've suddenly had your world pulled out from underneath you.

"But we've got together as a family, and our boys, and Gary and I and moving on.

"We're looking forward to a future where we might have a father at home and a husband at home because we haven't seen much of him in the last 24 years. "

"Gary's got a few plans up his sleeve for after the September election, and we'll go from there."

Senator Humphries says his relationship with his former Legislative Assembly colleague Mr Seselja is no longer friendly.

Meantime the Canberra Liberals have announced Elizabeth Lee as the party's candidate in the Federal seat of Fraser, and Tom Sefton as candidate in the seat of Canberra.

Both have previously stood as candidates in the ACT Assembly.

Topics: liberals, federal-elections, canberra-2600, act

First posted February 25, 2013 09:59:03