The sole remaining Liberal Western Victoria Upper House member told the Legislative Council in her maiden speech that for her “the individual is paramount in my world”.

“Government is obviously necessary to provide the services the individual and the private sector cannot deliver while supporting society’s most vulnerable, but government should not be the impediment to life and progress to the extent it is today,” Mrs McArthur said.

She elaborated further in an interview with The Standard, saying she did “not think it is the role of government to tell us how to live our lives from birth to the grave”, she said.

Government’s role was “to fix the potholes and to make sure we can turn the lights on”, Mrs McArthur said.

Her belief in containing the role of government stretches to considering whether there are too many politicians.

But she said if voters wanted to reduce the number of politicians they would also have to get rid of some government programs.

“And there’s not much of an appetite by the people to do that,” she said.

The Upper House has been in the firing line of others who have campaigned against big government but Mrs McArthur believes it still has a role as long as it operates as a proper house of review, giving other perspectives on the legislation initiated by the Lower House.

Her belief in small government includes keeping a tight rein on government spending.

“For me taxpayers are king. I am not a fan of free," she said.

“In the end somebody has to pay.

“Governments do not create wealth, individuals do.”

Among the government bodies she thinks should go is the Great South Coast Regional Partnership, one of nine groups established across the state in 2016 to provide feedback from local communities on issues they were concerned about to the state government.

Mrs McArthur said she believed regional partnerships “could be sliced out of the system and not one constituent would know it has even gone”.

Local governments were elected to make decisions for their communities and the regional partnerships were not needed, she said.

If people did not like the decisions of their local government, they could “boot them out”.  

She was concerned regional partnerships could be used by the Andrews Labor government “to get rid of local government”.  

Mrs McArthur is the wife of former federal Member for Corangamite Stewart McArthur and lives on the family’s historic Meningoort grazing property at Bookaar, north of Camperdown. The property has been in the McArthur family since the 1830s.

She was a Corangamite Shire councillor until former Liberal Upper House MP Simon Ramsay decided not to contest his seat following his charge for high-level drink driving, four months before November’s state election.

Mr Ramsay’s withdrawal opened up a sudden opportunity for Mrs McArthur to enter state parliament and she took it.

Her pre-selection for Mr Ramsay’s number one spot on the Liberal Upper House ticket for Western Victoria was done by the Liberal Party’s administrative committee and annoyed some south-west party members who were denied a vote about her endorsement. 

Mrs McArthur’s strident advocacy of small government and free market adds to the lively mix of Upper House MPs representing Western Victoria following the state election in which the Liberals were routed.

She has already clashed with fellow Upper House MP Andy Meddick, from the Animal Justice Party, who was elected on preferences after gaining less than 2.8 per cent of the primary vote.

Among the many issues on Mr Meddick’s wishlist raising Mrs McArthur’s ire are his calls to scale back the dairy industry by 20 per cent because of its impact on climate change and to ban Warrnambool’s famous jumps races and duck shooting.

“We do not want to scale back agriculture, we want to expand it,” she said.

“There will be no grinding of almonds to replace cow’s milk under my watch.”

She will fight vigorously for farmers’ right to farm against animal rights activists.

She grew up on a farm and knew that farmers looked after their animals, she said.

While she is strongly opposed to many of Mr Meddick’s views, she hopes to still be able to work with him.

But the question was “whether Mr Meddick could work with everybody else”, she said.

Another micro party MP joining Mrs McArthur as a Western Victoria Upper House MP is Stuart Grimley from Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party.

Mr Grimley advocates tougher sentences for serious offenders and for tougher eligibility for bail.

Mrs McArthur said she had found Mr Grimley to be “a perfectly reasonable person”.

While the Labor government has the most Upper House members, it does not have a clear majority and will need the support of the mixed bag of cross-bench MPs such as Mr Meddick and Mr Grimley to get legislation passed.

Former Western Victoria cross-bench MP James Purcell made much of his record in delivering for the south-west because he shared the balance of power in the Upper House but Mrs McArthur was dismissive of Mr Purcell’s claim.

“He might have suggested how successful he had been but that did not correspond with him getting elected,” Mrs McArthur said.

“If Mr Purcell was so successful, he would have got elected.” 

She said the Liberal/National Party MPs would work to get the Labor government to hold cross-bench MPs such as Mr Meddick to account and do their best to deliver for their regions.

“We will make sure that whatever the government promises, they deliver,” she said.

On her choice of former Warrnambool City councillor Jennifer Lowe as her electorate officer, Mrs McArthur rejected speculation Mrs Lowe was being groomed for another tilt at political office.

Mrs Lowe was fourth on the Liberal Western Victoria Upper House ticket in last November’s election but from that spot was, not surprisingly, unsuccessful.

Mrs McArthur said she had only been interested in employing the most talented person to be her electorate officer and Mrs Lowe had been that person.

“Mrs Lowe is doing a great job as an electorate officer,” she said.