The seat was declared by Mr Gee just after 8.30pm on Saturday night to a full room of Nationals supporters.

“The voters have placed their faith in our party to deliver the results for our country communities that they need and tonight we say to them we will not let you down,” he said.

The National Party has held the seat since 2007, however Mr Gee said there was uncertainty going into the election campaign over whether that would continue following John Cobb’s retirement.

“I think with a retiring member and lots of different local issues being fought out across the electorate, you never really know where the chips are going to fall in an election campaign until the results actually come in, but the results started rolling in and they were very strong,” he said.

Mr Gee said his first priority following the election will be the proposed Murray Darling Medical School for Charles Sturt University, which failed to receive funding in the Federal Budget in May.

“I’ll be having some discussions with Barnaby Joyce about that over the next few days when the dust settles and that’s the first thing that I think needs to be progressed as a matter of urgency,” he said.

The proposed deregulation of university fees has been a hot topic among candidates over the election campaign.

Mr Gee said the coalition has just brought in measures to make attending university easier for country students and that he would continue to fight for them as the member for Calare.

“I want to see as many of them as possible get into university and at the moment country students are under represented at university and I think we need to be working towards increasing the numbers of country students at uni,” he said.

Mr Gee said he is glad the campaign is over and he would like to acknowledge the efforts of his fellow candidates over the past few weeks.

“All of the candidates in Calare worked hard to get their messages out there,” he said.