Ray stands for State seat

AT November’s State Election, the lower house seat of Eureka will be contested by independent candidate Michael Ray.

A presenter with online outlet TheInformer and owner of business Pumpt Personal Training Consultants, Mr Ray has been a Bacchus Marsh local for four years.

He said he is running as an independent with a strong commitment to his community and would like to see more investment in Western Victoria, its people, infrastructure, and enterprises.

“Our suburbs are exploding with rapid population growth that has led to poor basic transportation infrastructure and poorly designed car-dependent suburbs, resulting in ridiculous commutes,” he said.

“Finding a variety of opportunities to improve work, life and play in Eureka is vital, and these opportunities lie within the community. No one knows what our community needs more than the community.”

Mr Ray is advocating for more support for start-up businesses, that the government do more to protect and value natural assets, and said Eureka and Western Victoria’s industry should be boosted to increase the availability of sustainable jobs.

He said the families, businesses, communities, voices of Eureka matter.

“We mattered in Bacchus Marsh when they tried to dump toxic soil in our Shire. We mattered when the Victorian Ombudsman found the EPA failed to engage with communities when approving locations to dump that contaminated soil,” he said.

“We mattered in the west in 2018 when Labor promised us a viable, reliable train line that still hasn’t happened.

“We should matter when AUSNET wants to destroy our farmland, increase fire risk, and inflict environmental vandalism and damage by running transmission lines and towers through our communities rather than underground.”