Wednesday, 19 February 2025

Ripon electorate

Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (09:46): It has been a little while since I have spoken in this place. My son Liam Allan Lynch was born prematurely on 8 September last year and was kept healthy and well by the incredible midwives, doctors and special care nursery team at Bendigo Health. It meant I took a little time away to learn how to be a mum and to soak in the newborn phase, but my work as the member for Ripon never stopped, and I kept fighting for my community every single day, even from my hospital bed.

The local wins across Ripon did not cease either, including millions of dollars secured for new key worker housing in Ararat and Beaufort; millions more for school improvements in St Arnaud, Creswick, Haddon, Talbot, Miners Rest and Clunes; a completed new kinder for St Arnaud; reduced speed limits for Waubra and Eddington, more than $600,000 for new CFA tankers and equipment; a new truck for the Wedderburn SES; a new bus extension to Lucas; school bus route improvements for Miners Rest; $100,000 for a new Beaufort men’s shed; a brand new ambulance station for Avoca; a new mosque for Ararat; 60 kilometres of mountain bike trails in Creswick; new drinking water for Elmhurst; and the reopening of bushfire-impacted areas of Mount Cole and Mount Buangor. I could not be prouder to raise the voices of rural and regional Victorians in this place, and I look forward to more of it to come.