Matthew Guy: Liberals’ ‘time in the sun will come again’

Matthew Guy delivers a message of hope for Liberal supporters while conceding defeat in his second election loss.

Matthew Guy has conceded defeat after a failed second tilt at leadership in Victoria.

Liberal Party faithful, including volunteers and staffers cheered as Mr Guy walked into the campaign’s headquarters at the Doncaster Bowls club in his seat of Bulleen about 10.45pm on Saturday.

Despite the Coalition only securing 21 seats compared with Labor’s 50 late on Saturday, Mr Guy — joined by his wife Renae — offered a positive outlook to his supporters.

“What we can see is that with a swing of around 4 per cent to us, and many pre-poll votes to come, we will finish – despite what many commentators say – we will finish with more seats in the parliament in both the lower house and the upper house,” he said.

“I think it's important now that post this election, that we come together as Victorians knowing that the best of our state should be ahead of us, not behind us.”

Mr Guy said there had been huge swings to the Liberal Party in Melbourne's north and west and said he wanted Labor to govern in a more unifying fashion.

The party campaigned on the state’s ailing health system and turned the electoral race into a referendum on Daniel Andrews’s leadership, which they criticised as divisive.

Mr Guy said he wanted to acknowledge in particular the efforts of opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier who earlier conceded the result was “disappointing”.

“One of the reasons that we have obtained a swing which is more than halfway to government on paper is because of the work Georgie has done,” he said.

“I'm immensely proud of all of the Liberal and National Party candidates around the state.”

By 11.30pm, the Liberal Party won 12 seats while the Nationals had secured six — an extra three from 2018 which included Mildura, Shepparton and Morwell. Labor had won 50, dispelling any lingering belief of a tight race as polls predicted.

Mr Guy also congratulated Sam Groth on winning the seat of Nepean — which covers part of the Mornington Peninsula — with a 10.1 per cent swing to the party.

Earlier in the day, the party were confident they would take a number of seats off Labor including Box Hill in the state’s east, Ringwood further east and Bayswater in the state’s outer east.

But in fact all three seats recorded swings to Labor.

Many volunteers and even Mr Guy insisted votes cast before Saturday would swing their way as counting continued late into Saturday.

Pointedly, Mr Guy did not say if he would continue on as leader of the party after he led the Coalition to a loss in 2018.

“We have got a lot of work to do, we know that,” he said.

“But we also know that our time in the sun will come again.”