There's a lot about politics that Rebecca Vassarotti never liked.
"I did really make a commitment to myself that I would never compromise my values and I would do it with integrity, which has made the road quite hard and actually probably is a lot of why I'm in this position right now," Ms Vassarotti says in the wake of the election.
The Greens' deputy leader lost her seat with a 5.5 per cent swing against the party in the inner city electorate of Kurrajong. A surge in support for Independents for Canberra's Thomas Emerson cut the Greens back to one seat in the electorate.
Ms Vassarotti, who stresses she is no career politician, was elected in 2020, when the Greens suddenly went from two seats to six, and went straight into cabinet with responsibility for environment, parks, heritage, homelessness, housing services, and building.
"I don't actually like elements of politics, like the performative politics and the adversarial politics. I don't like it and I decided not to participate in it, and tried to really always act with integrity," she says.
"I wanted to be constructive and collaborative. I wanted to really hear where people were coming from and try and find pathways through, across the board, not just with Labor, but also with Liberals."
It's an approach Ms Vassarotti says confused people, and made it harder when it came to getting re-elected. She says she feels the political process is often focused on having the wrong conversations, caught in very binary modes.
"I'd really like to have a different conversation about how we use this incredible opportunity of representing our electorates to actually do the very best that we can, particularly at this point, given the challenges that we have ahead of us are so significant and this is such a crucial decade.
"If we don't get these things right in this decade, we've got a real problem. I get it, and we have to have this, but all of the conversations that are going on this week and next week, they're really important conversations to have, but I think they do distract us a little bit in terms of the really important discussions we need to have."
Labor, Liberal and Greens figures put aside their political differences after the election result to express regret, albeit sometimes quietly, that Ms Vassarotti's departure will be a significant loss for the Legislative Assembly.
"One of the other interesting things: when people have chosen to do things different with me, it seems they felt bad about it," Ms Vassarotti says.
"I think there has been some recognition [of the way I've worked] but I think this is one of the biggest challenges about it all - that I just don't think the way we do politics is serving the community particularly well."
Ms Vassarotti says she would not trade off any of her achievements for re-election.
"This is part of the challenge with the electoral system, that we actually need people in there thinking for the long term, and actually trying to deliver long term. But the system is really bound. And you're often not able to demonstrate what that stuff is," she says.
"It's also very unforgiving of when things don't go quite to plan. And people have really short-term memories. We sort of forget that two years of this term was lost to responding to the pandemic."
Ms Vassarotti says it was "absolutely intentional" that she would stand up and admit when things went wrong and she does not think it had a negative impact on her at the ballot box.
"I think we have an obligation to our electorate to treat them with respect and actually be really honest and authentic in terms of who we are and the fact that, you know, things will go wrong," she says.
"It's actually how you respond to them, that is the important thing."
Ms Vassarotti agrees that it will be easier for the next minister who wants to be more collaborative, creative and constructive.
"We really need to build things that actually live way beyond a single personality, you know. Particularly in politics, it's not on person there's not one achievement that's been made that you can say that was all me," she says.
"It's the incredible staff, the public sector, the community. That's all really important."
Ms Vassarotti, who is adamant she does not know what she will do next, is reluctant to impose a view on what path the Greens should take going into negotiations with Labor after the election. She says the question of whether the Greens should serve in cabinet is not up to her and there are benefits and risks to whatever decision the party takes.
"I am so comfortable and confident we made the right decision in 2020. I think the things to consider in 2024 are different. ... I will have my perspectives, but it's just one of hundreds of people," she says.
