Wednesday, 19 March 2025

 Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (10:01): Ripon is full of amazing locals who do so much for our community. Today I want to give a shout-out to some of them that I have seen in action recently. To Kirk McDonald from the Linton Cricket Club and Greg Spratling, Jan Haines and Carolyn Loader from the Carngham Linton Football Netball Club, thank you for all you do for community sport and for your advocacy to get the $1.4 million rec reserve oval upgrade complete. To Danny McIver, who fought for our country and has since devoted decades to the Maryborough RSL sub-branch, thank you for championing the $44,000 hall upgrade for local veterans. To Phillip Lewis, congratulations on more than 40 years as an ambulance community officer in Beaufort. I hope you enjoy your much-deserved retirement with lots of golf and Lego. To Ash Turnham and the team at the Ararat fire brigade, thank you for keeping us safe this fire season, and an extra big congratulations to your member Maxi Starick for winning Ararat’s Young Citizen of the Year award on Australia Day. And thank you to Sharon Roxburgh and the Save Beaufort PS60 committee, who have championed a community hub at the old Beaufort school site for years and who I was proud to meet with just last week to discuss progress on my $800,000 election commitment to make this a reality. These local legends care deeply about helping others, and it is an honour to support them as their local MP.