Our Advocacy Update

It’s been a busy start to year for us in the advocacy space for Women in Business. As you can imagine, with election season comes lots of opportunities for connections! And within this moment, there’s plenty to discuss.

Since January 2025 we’ve met with the following:
• Office of Hon. Natalie Hutchins, MP Minister for Women
• Office of Natalie Suleyman, Victorian Minister for Veterans, Small Business and Youth
• Federal Flinders MP, Zoe McKenzie
• Federal Flinders candidate Ben Smith
• MP for Hastings, Paul Mecurio
• Mornington Peninsula Shire Director for Planning and Environment, Renea Littlejohn And Director for Community Strengthening, Tanya Scicluna
• MP Shire, Councillor for Nepean, Andrea Allen

And on behalf of our members attended:
• An International Women’s Day lunch hosted by Toorak College and focused on community partnerships;
• A School Leadership Breakfast & Candidate Forum, hosted by the Committee for Frankston and Mornington Peninsula (asking questions of candidates on their support for and connection to issues facing SMEs in our community);
• A women in business roundtable hosted by Zoe McKenzie MP and the Hon. Sussay Ley MP;
• A women’s health forum hosted by Federal candidate for Flinders, Sarah Race.

We’re also connecting with our partner Associations and groups:
• Connecting with our Regional Tourism Board and sharing economic pressures and hoping to better understand how they can advocate for our tourism businesses;
• Catching up with Committee for Frankston and MP CEO, Josh Sinclair to share advocacy;
• Meetings and events with the Business Executive Hub, Women’s Spirit Project, and the Frankston Business Collective.

In these discussions we talk about who we are – what our members are doing and share your impact (from our impact report surveys). We share with them some of our key priorities:
Representation – how we can improve female representation in our decision making spaces and influence their work – seeking commitments from them on this.
Opportunities – ways in which we can create opportunities for our members and beyond, through financial support, procurement and delivering on existing gender equity plans.
Collaboration – plans for how we can embed opportunities for our members through commitments, plans and actions.

Within these we discuss the pressures of the moment – recently these have been inflationary pressures, economic impacts, reducing red tape and simplifying tax and compliance obligations.

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Upcoming meetings in our calendar:
Mayor of Mornington Peninsula Shire, Anthony Marsh
MPSC Councillors Cam Williams, Max Patton & Deputy Mayor Paul Pingiaro.
MPSC Director for Planning and Environment, Renea Littlejohn

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We’re focused on building relationships – across state, federal and local government and community – in every interaction and all of our work. We don’t shy from the hard questions and we don’t feel compromised by funding or political affiliations – we lean into the important conversations with the singular purpose of how we can best serve you and our community. And what a wonderful community we have to share!

Thanks for reading and for the work you’re doing in your space to make our communities thrive.

Melissa Goffin, Chair and Founder.