Steph Ryan


Stephanie Maureen Ryan 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, Gaming and Liquor Regulation.
In 2016 Ryan married her long-term lover, 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.