Thursday, 13 August 2026

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Special Minister of State) (09:57): Well said, President. I recently had the pleasure of joining my colleagues the member for Mill Park, the member for St Albans and the member for Thomastown in the other place at the Macedonian Australian Community Organisation’s annual Ilinden celebration in Sunshine. Ilinden is the Macedonian national day, a day to honour the history of a community who have enriched Victoria’s social and cultural life. For more than a century Macedonian Australians have contributed greatly to Victoria’s social and cultural fabric through their art and sports, through thriving businesses and community groups and through the values of supporting one another and giving back to the whole community through service. Their contribution lives on in the communities they have built, the institutions that they have sustained and the generations they have raised here who now call Victoria home. In Victoria our diversity is one of our greatest strengths, and it is something that the Carroll Labor government will always champion. As Macedonian Australians celebrate Ilinden, I acknowledge the enduring contribution that the Macedonian community have made to our state, of course including Melbourne’s west.