And in the blue corners ...

This evening at the Rex Hotel the Canberra Liberals will have an opportunity to put behind them many weeks of uncertainty and reaffirm the values on which the Liberal Party was formed almost 70 years ago by Robert Menzies.

I urge members of the Canberra Liberals to vote in favour of a new, transparent and inclusive preselection, for these reasons.

The preselection of candidates in February was the most disturbing exercise I have ever seen in the Liberal Party. What I witnessed looked more like the workings of the Labor Party than the party I have belonged to for 30 years.

From an administrative perspective, this preselection was shockingly run. Long-standing members were told they were qualified preselectors, only to arrive on the day of the vote to discover that their names had been removed without warning from the list.

Members were advised that meetings they had attended months before had suddenly been ruled invalid, but without enough notice to allow them to attend other qualifying meetings before the rolls closed. Many members received no notice of qualifying meetings they were entitled to attend.

Additionally, Zed Seselja announced his candidacy for the Senate nomination after the last day a party member could have attended a meeting to qualify them to vote. This meant that hundreds of members who would ordinarily have chosen to exercise their right to vote were trapped outside the college of preselectors.

The Senate nomination is the most precious gift the ACT party can confer on one of its members.

There should never be any doubt that our nominee is the choice of the whole party, freely given.

At the moment, that doubt permeates both the party membership and the broader ACT community.

Tonight's meeting is our chance to clear the air, and commission a fair process.

Zed Seselja

Tonight Liberal Party members have an important choice to make.

My decision to seek preselection for the Senate ticket was not one I made easily. I have enormous respect for Gary Humphries and the work he has done for the party. However, along with many of my fellow members, I believe that the Liberal Senate seat should not be marginal and should be made secure. Following the record number of seats we achieved at the ACT election, I believe I am the right person to do this.

Throughout the preselection and the following debate, I have always stood up for the Liberal brand. I have never run away or hid from our party's beliefs and I have never attacked my own party in public or private.

We have proven as a team that we can take our proud Liberal voice and make it work in Canberra.

The current state of the federal Labor Party makes it clear that it is unlikely to last until September 14th and we must get our campaign operations in order.

We have come a long way together in the last five years and I'm proud of the contribution I made to that progress as Parliamentary Leader - but we cannot be complacent.

A vote to overturn a valid preselection is unprecedented, and would surely lead the Party into chaos. It would lead to ongoing challenges, uncertainty and possibly legal dispute as no preselection would ever again be safe. It would inevitably mean the kind of negative publicity the party has received in recent weeks would continue indefinitely.

Liberal Party members have a clear choice tonight - we either choose to support the motion and foster conflict and uncertainty among ourselves, or we choose to vote down the motion and take the battle to the real enemy - Labor and the Greens. I urge members to vote no.