following the latter's retirement in 2008. At the 2004 federal election, Family First contested seats all over Australia, generally exchanging preferences with Liberal candidates, although in some seats it exchanged preferences with the Australian Labor Party. At that election, Steve Fielding was elected as a Senator for Victoria for the party. Fielding, along with independent Nick Xenophon and the five Australian Greens, shared the balance of power in the Senate from July 2008 to July 2011. He lost his seat at the 2010 federal election. In June 2008, sitting MP and former Liberal Party member, Dan Sullivan, joined the Western Australian state branch of Family First as an executive member. When three former One Nation MPs attended the public launch of the branch, it fuelled media speculation that they might try to influence the West Australian branch. During the 2009/10 financial year, party chairman Bob Day made two loans totalling $405,000 to Family First. After gaining 4% of the vote in several House of Representatives seats in the 2010 federal election, the party also received around $400,000 in Commonwealth election funding. Family First returned to the Australian Senate at the 2013 federal election, when Day was elected as a Senator for South Australia. He was re-elected at the 2016 double dissolution federal election. A few months later, his family-owned building company, Home Australia Group, ran into financial difficulties and was wound up. Day announced immediately that he would resign from the senate as a consequence, however he did not resign immediately, allowing time for the party to develop a process for selecting a replacement. He resigned on 1 November 2016 creating a vacancy in the senate. In April 2017 the high court ruled that he was invalidly elected in July 2016 and had been ineligible to sit in the senate since February 2016. The vacancy created by Day's resignation was filled by another Family First senate candidate, Lucy Gichuhi. Gichuhi was declared by the court of disputed returns on 13 April 2017 to be elected instead of Day, after a special recount of South Australian senate votes. Merger with the Australian Conservatives On 26 April 2017, a merger between the Australian Conservatives and the Family First Party was announced, with Family First to be absorbed into the Conservatives. Newly appointed Family First senator Lucy Gichuhi did not join the Conservatives, and became an independent senator when the Family First Party