Wendy Lovell has announced she is not going to re-contest the next election.
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Megan Fisher
For Wendy Lovell, deciding to retire from politics was not a position she took lightly.
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The State Member for Northern Victoria has announced she will not re-contest the next State election in November.
By then, she will have spent 24 years in politics.
When she was first elected in 2022, Ms Lovell was the Member for North East Province, a position she held for four years.
Electorate boundaries changed after that, and at the next election she became a Member for Northern Victoria – a position she has held ever since.
Now, the time has come for Ms Lovell to retire.
“It was the most difficult decision I’ve made,” she said.
“I truly love this job and representing the community.”
Ms Lovell made her decision in January to not re-contest her seat at the next election, with pre-selection nominations needed by the Liberal Party early in the year.
“It meant it was a commitment for five more years. I just thought that might be a bit too long,” Ms Lovell said.
Ms Lovell was 42 years old when she was first elected to parliament, but never did she dream she would continue in the position for so many years.
Ms Lovell has several highs she looks back on as standout moments in her political career.
“Getting elected and representing my community was number one,” she said.
“Becoming a minister and having the opportunity to make decisions” was another thing she looks back on with fondness.
Wendy Lovell when she first started as a politician in 2002.
New hospitals in Numurkah, Echuca and Rochester were high on her priority list.
The Liberals were in government when the decision was made for a new Numurkah Hospital which had been destroyed in the 2011 floods.
Ms Lovell said also among the things she advocated for during COVID-19 state border closures was to allow concessions for workers in communities such as Cobram, Yarrawonga and Echuca who lived in one state but worked in another.
While she had pride in the big projects she had had some involvement in advocating for, or introducing, Ms Lovell said it was often the work that she was able to do for individuals that left a lasting impression on her.
“It’s extremely rewarding. When I have a win for the community or an individual, I am blown away,” she said.
The hardest thing during her time has been seeing her electorate go through natural disasters including the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires where the most deaths were in her electorate, as well as other large fires including the ones in January in several parts of the electorate.
There have also been floods in four different years, including the 2011 and 2022 floods that devastated Rochester, with the 2022 floods also severely impacting parts of Echuca.
“In the midst of that, if there hasn’t been bushfires or floods, we’ve had storms where we’ve lost major fruit crops,” she said.
As for her biggest disappointment after so many years in the role, Ms Lovell said it was that she spent the majority of the time with her party in opposition and not government.
“You can do so many things when you are in government,” she said.
“You can also do things in opposition, but it is a different thing when you have to convince someone else to do things for your community.”
In her retirement, Ms Lovell is looking forward to having some downtime, however, while she will not be a politician any more, she envisages still taking on roles to help the region.
“I’m not the sort of person who does nothing,” she said.
Her final words were to those she has represented for so long.
“I’d like to say thank you to the community.” she said.
“It’s been the biggest privilege of my life to represent Northern Victoria and to be a voice in parliament and I will be forever grateful I’ve had this opportunity.”
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