VICTORIAN upper house Liberal candidate Simon Ramsay says the Liberal Party should look more closely at the Greens policies to identify why the Greens' vote rose at the recent federal election.
Mr Ramsay, who gained pre-selection last year to replace the retiring John Vogels as a Liberal candidate for the Legislative Council seat of Western Victoria, said Greens preferences to Labor had a big impact in a number of federal seats at last month's election.
"In Corangamite, they got the incumbent (Labor's) Darren Cheeseman over the line," Mr Ramsay said.
Mr Ramsay said the election result showed that many people were disenchanted with the two major political parties and supporting the Greens.
"We need to look at Greens preferences to see how they will swing in the state election," he said.
"We need to look more closely at Greens policies and see if they fit within our ideology."
Mr Ramsay, a former Victorian Farmers Federation president, said the issues that were important for western Victoria included jobs generation, the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, food production and water security and management of national parks.
"I am interested in exploring what the Greens stand for," he said.
Mr Ramsay, the partner of the Liberal's federal candidate for Corangamite, Sarah Henderson, said he had been active in supporting her recent campaign and would support the campaign of three Liberal lower house candidates at the November 27 election.
He said he would be supporting Liberal candidates in the western Victorian seats of Ripon, which includes Ararat, Maryborough, Avoca, Stawell and Skipton, and in Ballarat East and Ballarat West.
The three seats are among six which would be crucial to the state Coalition's chances of winning government, he said.
Mr Ramsay said he was not taking for granted his number two spot on the Liberal ticket for Western Victoria and wanted to continue the good rural representation done by John Vogels.
He believed people were "tired of having Labor in government for 11 years".
"Labor has become very arrogant and dismissive of rural and regional government," he said.
"Labor's attitude is that the voting power is in the city."
Mr Ramsay said while he was selling part of his farm at Birregurra, east of Colac, he would live on another section of the property.
Mr Vogels has had an electorate office in Warrnambool but Mr Ramsay said he wait until he was elected before making a decision about where his electorate office would be located.
He said he was mindful that lower house Liberal MP Denis Napthine had an office in Warrnambool, the retiring federal Liberal Member for Wannon David Hawker had offices in Hamilton and Warrnambool but there was presently no office for a Liberal member in Ballarat.
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