New candidate says “we matter”

A new name on the political scene has put his hand up to contest the seat of Eureka in November’s state election – Independent Michael Ray from Bacchus Marsh.

Mr Ray is a family man and local business owner, moving to Bacchus Marsh from the east of Melbourne four years ago, to run Pumpt Personal Training Consultants.

He is also an international speaker addressing outdated gender and societal roles, and the host of TheInformer, an online news and current affairs broadcaster.

Through running TheInformer, Mr Ray has interviewed some of the big names in Australian politics, and says he has found the answers to his questions were “nothing but political spin and empty promises”.

In his four years in western Victoria, he says it’s also become apparent that despite the West being responsible for a large portion of the state’s revenue, it gets little back for its businesses, infrastructure, or communities.

Mr Ray said he was stepping up as a candidate for Eureka to challenge the Labor Government’s slogan ‘Doing What Matters’.

“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. 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 said.

“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. We mattered in the West in 2018 when Labor promised us a viable, reliable train line that still hasn’t happened. We matter when AusNet want 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.”

As a candidate for Eureka, Mr Ray’s priorities are supporting start-up businesses, protecting natural assets, and “encouraging an influx of industries that will create local sustainable jobs”.

“Hopefully this Victorian election will be significantly different because of a raft of independent candidates whose loyalties, commitment, and accountability are to their communities, rather than to parties or political partisan point scoring,” Mr Ray said.

For more information on Michael Ray and to get in touch, visit www.michaelray.au, or visit ‘Michael Ray – Independent Candidate for Eureka’ on Facebook.