Steph Ryan
Stephanie Maureen Ryan (born 20 June 1986) is an Australian politician. She has been a National Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly since November 2014, representing the Legislative Assembly seat of Euroa. She had served as a country journalist and senior adviser to various state MPs including Liberal Premier Ted Baillieu and members of the Victorian Nationals' leadership team prior to her own election. On 3 December 2014, Ryan was elected as deputy leader of the Nationals in the Victorian Parliament. On 17 December, she was made Shadow Minister for Training, Skills and Apprenticeships and Shadow Minister  for Young Victorians. Following the 2018 election Ryan was given the portfolios of Water, Public Transport (Regional), Gaming and Liquor Regulation. In 2016 Ryan married her long-term partner, former Australian Labor Party City of Yarra Councillor Simon Huggins. According to Ryan, it took her more than three years of asking before Huggins agreed to go out with her. The relationship attracted much interest in the media given Ryan's status as deputy leader of Victoria's oldest anti-Labor political party and Huggins being a member of the Labor Left and strident advocate for LGBTI issues. Ryan was outed  in 2019 as one of three Nationals MPs who had appointed family members to taxpayer-funded jobs in their electorate offices, having employed her mother on a casual basis at taxpayer expense between 2014 and 2018. Liberal MP Wendy Lovell castigated Ryan in a private WhatsApp group for Victorian Coalition MPs for engaging in "low tactics" and "hypocrisy" in mid-2021 after revelations emerged that the Nationals had engaged in the unlawful practice of cybersquatting on domain names using the name of independent Mildura MP Ali Cupper, which sought to redirect internet users to a National Party website containing negative material  about Cupper. Ryan denied that there was anything low about cybersquatting. Cupper, meanwhile, said that her constituents were not impressed by the games and distractions which the Nationals had engaged in. In the aftermath of Barnaby Joyce returning as federal Nationals leader and deputy prime minister, Ryan publicly attacked Joyce, accusing him of being unfit to lead because he had engaged in sex outside of marriage and been the subject of unsubstantiated allegations of harassment. It subsequently emerged that, in conjunction with state leader Peter Walsh, Ryan had attempted to orchestrate the Victorian Nationals' disaffiliation from the Federal Nationals in  protest at Joyce's return, but the state party's management board rejected the disaffiliation motion.. Ryan also expressed frustration that Victorian Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie had voted for Joyce's return to the leadership and had won promotion to Cabinet at the expense of Gippsland MP Darren Chester, even though McKenzie's promotion resulted in a new record being set for the number of women in an Australian federal cabinet. Ryan is a distant relative of Ned Kelly and is the niece of former National Party federal president, John Tanner.