Reason Party leader Fiona Patten has conceded defeat in the Victorian election after it has become clear she will lose her upper house seat to Adem Somyurek.
The Victorian Electoral Commission will deliver final results on Tuesday, however Patten said it is clear she will not be re-elected in the Northern Metropolitan Region.
“After a wonderful 8 years in Parliament I’d like to congratulate the successful candidates for Northern Metropolitan Region and indeed all successful candidates in the Victorian election,” Patten said on Monday. “Sadly I won’t be joining them in the 60th Parliament.”
During her time in the Victorian parliament, Patten has been a champion of evidence-based social policy, playing a key role in several significant legislative reforms, many of which have been fundamental to improving women’s lives.
From the crossbench, Patten was instrumental in delivering harassment-free zones around abortion clinics, the decriminalisation of sex work, introducing voluntary assisted dying and Melbourne’s first medically supervised injecting room.
Patten first entered parliament in 2014 as a member of what was then known as the Australian Sex Party.
Reflecting on her time in parliament, Patten said she was proud that “Victoria now leads the nation in progressive politics and with assisted dying and safe access zones in particular, has initiated national change.”
“My biggest regrets were that I could not get legalisation of cannabis over the line and that my Bill to outlaw preference harvesting did not succeed. If it had, I suspect the upper house would be looking a little different.”
Patten said she would be leaving the Andrews government with some “homework” to continue on commitments that had been made to her.
“The government made a number of commitments to me that I call on the 60th parliament to make sure they keep their word on…,” she said.
“The government committed to:
1/ Replacing the lord’s prayer with a more secular & inclusive start to sitting days.
2/ A review of caps on electoral expenditure.
3/ A Ministerial portfolio to end loneliness.”
She also called on the next parliament to “hold the government to account” and respond to three inquiries she had chaired during her time in parliament, including inquiries into the criminal justice system, cannabis use and homelessness.
Former Labor minister, now member of the conservative Democratic Labour Party, Adem Somyurek will likely take Patten’s place in the upper house following the distribution of preferences. Somyurek was removed from Labor’s frontbench in 2020 over branch stacking allegations and later resigned from parliament.