Tuesday, 8 September 2026

 Matt FREGON (Ashwood) (13:01): There are very few things we can guarantee in life, including being here in December for all of us, but I have been written off before, so you never know, I may just be back to bother you all. What I can guarantee, though, is that being in this place is the greatest privilege of my working life. Before we finish up for the term I just want to give a thanks to the very good people of the Ashwood district and before that the Mount Waverley district – the Ashwood district going forward – for the grace that they have had in giving me this great privilege. But there are many others that make this work – my wife, for instance, and my three wonderful kids Sophie, Lindsay and Sam – and I give them thanks for putting up with all this and, while we are at it, my wonderful staff Lisa Williams, Chunying Liu, Matt Baker and Margo and everyone who got us on the way. It is a great amount of work that gets us here with the great privilege to serve our people, and I aim to continue to do it for a very long time.

I also want to give a very quick shout-out to my Ashwood youth advisory committee, whose names I am going to have to do next week because I am running out of time. They are coming in to speak to the Deputy Premier today about their plans for financial literacy in the curriculum, which is an amazing amount of work they have done, and I know they are going to put on a very good policy decision for the Deputy Premier.