Thursday, 30 July 2026

 Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (09:53): Firstly, I want to congratulate the preselected candidate for Ripon for the Liberal Party Megan Read. She is an amazing woman. She is a mum of four, she runs a huge agriculture business with her husband, and she is going to take the fight up to the government in Ripon. She is just amazing. I also want to congratulate the Liberal candidate for Eureka Emma Muir, who has been fighting for her community for many, many years. She is an amazing businesswoman in her own right and very well connected with the racing community in the Ballan area. She is a fierce advocate for Eureka.

I was very proud to join these two amazing women recently at the announcement of the finalists for the Commerce Ballarat business awards, which are going to be held later in the year. We were able to meet a lot of different people from a lot of different businesses who were all coming up to us, saying they are sick and tired of the Labor government. They want to see changes to our tax system and changes to make it easier to run a business because the cost of doing business is so hurtful in this state. There are a lot of innovative, really smartly run businesses in Ballarat that are just up against the wall and really struggling because they are finding it so difficult to navigate a system which has deliberately been made difficult for them.

Congratulations to Megan and Emma. They are fierce advocates for the community, particularly the business community, and we are going to drive it forward.