The election is done, the Australian people have spoken, the dust is settling.

Congratulations to Scott Morrison and his team who will now form Government.

It is up to me and our Labor team to review the results, our policies and work hard to hold the Government when Parliament resumes.

We had a big agenda.

We were very honest with the Australian people.

We said 'we want to make these reforms, we want to make these investments in education, in health and infrastructure, in childcare and we're going to map out for the Australian people how we intend to pay that.'

That made us a very big target for an incredibly negative and at times incredibly dishonest campaign against us.

The Coalition armed with Clive Palmer's cheque book, an undercurrent of lies and a big broad target that we created were very successful in painting fear, in creating fear amongst the Australian people.

Now, we've got to go away and look at how we ensure that we don't allow that to happen again.

Part of the process involves replacing Bill Shorten, and I support Anthony Albanese who has put his hand up to be the next Labor leader.

I think Anthony has got significant support within the community and he will be the Labor leader as Parliament resumes.

While I was disappointed with the national outcome it was great to see Fiona Phillips elected as the Member for Gilmore after years of hard work.

Few deserve the result more than Fiona, who continued to work hard for her community after a narrow loss in 2016.

Our united Labor team will continue to fight for our region.

A significant number of commitments have been made to the region. Some were matched by the Government like the upgrade of the Princes Highway and the redevelopment of Shellharbour Hospital.

The job now is keeping the Government accountable for the promises they made across the region, and finding alternate avenues to help secure funding for the important projects we wanted to support under a Shorten Labor Government.

Lastly I want to give a sincere thank you to everyone who contributed to my campaign to return as the Member for Whitlam.

Elections are not won by a single person, it is a dedicated team effort of people who give up their time to support the Labor cause.

I have a great team around me in the Illawarra and Southern Highlands, and I will ensure I do my best to represent you all for the next three years.