Since becoming a Senator for Victoria on July 1 this year, Bridget McKenzie has hit the ground running.
She has established her electorate office in Bendigo and is the first Federal Senator in almost two decades to choose the State’s most central city as an operational base.
The various enterprises obvious in Bendigo and across rural Victoria dovetail with her vision for the Nationals in a changing Australia, which Senator McKenzie articulated during the long campaign to win the confidence of voters at the polling booths last year.
After meetings with apple and pear growers about industry problems, highlighted by Canberra’s crazy decision to risk the importation of the fire blight disease along with New Zealand apples, Senator McKenzie then joined the protest rally in Shepparton in late July.
She has had similar meetings with representatives of the dairy, cropping and livestock industries, as well as retailers and small business operators and is closely watching disability (NDIS) funding.
A quick look at the new Senator’s achievements so far shows she is qualified to walk the talk for all rural industries and small business in the halls of Parliament in Canberra.
Bridget McKenzie, 41, was born and raised in the State’s north east, a background which she says has given her first-hand knowledge of the issues facing regional communities across the State.
As widely reported in the media in recent weeks, Bridget McKenzie polished off a family background in the economics of small business and farming in regional Victoria with degrees in Applied Science and Education. In her professional life before politics, she worked as a teacher, and then as a lecturer at Monash University.
According to the Federal President of The Nationals, John Tanner, Bridget McKenzie will be a great asset to the party’s Federal team in Parliament,
“Bridget brings a unique skills-set to Federal politics — a mix of academic qualifications and practical experience,” John Tanner says.