After a wonderful eight years representing Northern Metropolitan, I’d like to congratulate the successful candidates for the region and indeed all successful candidates at the 2022 Victorian State Election.

After a wonderful eight years representing Northern Metropolitan, I’d like to congratulate the successful candidates for the region and indeed all successful candidates at the 2022 Victorian State Election.
Sadly I will not be joining them in the 60th Parliament but I do have some homework for them.
While the result is disappointing for me, it has been such an uplifting, enlightening privilege to serve the voters of this vast and diverse electorate, and to have achieved progressive change. I certainly won’t die wondering.
I would like to thank the voters for giving me an extraordinary eight years in Parliament. I tried every day to make things a little better and fairer. I was honoured to be welcomed into so many parts of so many communities.
Of course this was always a team effort and I would like to profoundly thank the Reason Party’s wonderful staff and volunteers, who tried so hard in my bid for a third term — and my own staff, who amazingly are still standing.
They share in the legislative changes achieved, as do so many outside my office. I am forever grateful to the many organisations and individuals who campaigned for change in Victoria alongside us.
We have a lot to be proud of.
Politics and public policy have always been for me about evidence and first principles including equality of opportunity, accountability, transparency, effectiveness, and compassion.
And on these principles my achievements in Parliament were based, including…
  • voluntary assisted dying
  • improvements in women’s health
  • extended protection for young people in state care
  • harassment-free zones around abortion clinics
  • harm minimisation reforms in drug law, including the medically supervised injecting room
  • spent convictions
  • sex work decriminalisation
And more.
These are the things I think about most when I reflect on my involvement in the parliament. Victoria now leads the nation in progressive politics and with assisted dying and safe access zones in particular, has initiated national change.
My biggest regrets were that I could not get legalisation of cannabis over the line and that my Bill to outlaw preference harvesting did not succeed. If it had, I suspect the upper house would be looking a little different.
But back to the homework. The government made a number of commitments to me that I call on the 60th parliament to make sure they keep their word on.
The government committed to:
  1. Replacing the lord's prayer with a more secular & inclusive start to sitting days.
  2. A review of caps on electoral expenditure.
  3. A Ministerial portfolio to end loneliness.
I also call on the next parliament to hold the government to account and respond to three landmark Parliamentary Inquiries I chaired which attracted significant community interest: The Inquiry into the Criminal Justice System, The Inquiry into the Cannabis Use, and The Inquiry into Homelessness.
There is much unfinished business that I am still passionate about and will continue to advocate for.
I’ll pick myself up (after a bit of rest, recovery, and a short course of chemo) and will continue to fight for decent change, in one way or another as I always have.
- Fiona Patten