Brendon Grylls concedes defeat in Pilbara

West Australian Nationals leader Brendon Grylls has conceded defeat in his seat of Pilbara.

Nationals leader Brendon Grylls has conceded defeat in his seat of Pibara.

WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls, the former farmer who made Colin Barnett premier after the 2008 state election resulted in a hung parliament, has lost his seat in parliament.

Mr Grylls has today conceded defeat to Labor in Pilbara, the northern seat that takes in WA’s main iron ore mines.

Mr Grylls went to this election with a bold plan to tax iron ore miners Rio Tinto and BHP an extra $7.2 billion over four years.

The miners launched an advertising campaign against Mr Grylls’ plan, claiming it would make Australia uncompetitive and cost thousands of jobs.

Mr Grylls agreed to form government with the Liberals eight and a half years ago on condition that 25 per cent of the state’s mining royalties were spent on regional projects. Overall, more than $6 billion in royalties was directed to country towns for infrastructure projects such as recreation centres and other programs across the arts, youth and indigenous affairs.

Mr Grylls this afternoon took to Facebook to reflect on his defeat by quoting Theodore Roosevelt an thanking his supporters.

The state president of the WA Nationals, James Hayward, said Mr Grylls left a legacy as one of the most pivotal figures in WA’s political history.

“Brendon has never been afraid to get a blood nose in order to get a better deal for regional WA,” he said.

“This election was no different and his political courage and fortitude to take on big interests on behalf of every regional West Australian is something the Nationals WA are immensely proud of.

“Achieving big outcomes, takes equally big risk - and finding representatives that are prepared to put themselves on the line to get better outcomes for the community can be a rarity.

“In the face of strong headwinds, including the most well-resourced negative advertising campaign ever seen in our WA’s political history, Brendon led a strong fight on behalf of regional WA and didn’t back down.”

Mr Hayward said under Mr Grylls’ leadership, the Nationals had forged a new path as an independent political party.

“Brendon will go down in history as the architect of the once-in-a-generation Royalties for Regions policy that has delivered meaningful and transformative change across regional WA,” he said.

“Prior to 2008, regional people were ignored but then Royalties for Regions policy brought them to the table, this was largely due to Brendon’s strength and vision for regional WA.”

According to the ABC election website, Mr Grylls has suffered a 13.5 per cent swing against him and lost the seat to Labor’s Kevin Michel. The Nationals may also lose Kalgoorlie.

“We fought a fair fight and a good campaign — at the end of the day there’s always going to be a winner and a loser. And the people have spoken,” Mr Michel told the ABC.