Gayle Tierney served as a minister for nearly a decade across portfolios including Skills and TAFE, Higher Education, Agriculture, Regional Development, Water and Corrections.
Ms Tierney said one of the greatest privileges of her career had been leading the Skills and TAFE portfolio, enabling the government to deliver reforms she said were needed to rebuild from the ground up.
Ms Tierney, the State Member for Western Victoria, has served in elected office for 36 years, and before this, was the first female state secretary of the vehicle division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, and also the federal president.
During this period, she was also an executive member of the ACTU.
Her announcement came on the same day two other state ministers, health minister Mary-Anne Thomas and finance minister Danny Pearson also announced they were stepping down.
In her announcement, Ms Tierney said after 20 years in parliament it was simply time to pass the baton.
The new agriculture minister is Michaela Settle, the only one of the new ministers with a farming background.
She has lived in regional Victoria for most of her life and is a single mum of two young men, Sam and Alex.
She owned and operated her family’s sheep farm in Ararat for over a decade and, after reskilling at TAFE, worked at Ballarat Community Health.
In November 2018 she was elected as the State Member for Buninyong.
State Member for Eastern Victoria Harriet Shing returns to the water portfolio as well as managing health.
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