THE SOUTH-WEST looks set to lose the region's only upper house MP office with Bev McArthur to vacate a site in Port Fairy.
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The Port Fairy office's landlord Michael Hearn said the Victorian Parliament had discontinued a month-to-month lease on the Bank Street property.
"Parliament has contacted us and said the lease will end within the rights of the lease," Mr Hearn said.
"We have had notice that she is locating to another office."
Liberal MP Ms McArthur would not be drawn on any suggestion of a move when contacted by The Standard, saying her office was "in Port Fairy, full stop".
"I'm not ruling anything in or out," she said.
"There is an office in Port Fairy, that's where I have an office placed. We will continue to service the electorate no matter where the office is."
Ms McArthur said the office had "very few" visits from constituents even before coronavirus restrictions closed it to face-to-face public meetings.
She said the office had been staffed "five days a week" before the pandemic.
"Any suggestion that the office is not being manned is scurrilous," she said.
"Regardless of how or where the office is, it's about how the electorate is serviced. Constituents are able to meet me in any place they choose at a time of their convenience."
Ms McArthur said upper house members would be better suited to "mobile offices" that would reflect the job of representing big electorates like Western Victoria, which takes in 79,438 square kilometres.
"I think we have to take democracy to the people," Ms McArthur said.
"I don't serve any purpose for anyone sitting in an office. I might be in Bacchus Marsh one day, Nhill another, Barwon Heads another."
She said the Port Fairy office was a "three-hour return trip" from her Camperdown home and she had "no choice" about its location when elected to the Legislative Council in 2018.
"It was a vacant office and had to be used by the member of parliament in the nearest location," Ms McArthur said.
The Port Fairy site was formerly the office of Vote 1 Local Jobs MP James Purcell, who was defeated at the 2018 election.
Ms McArthur is the only representative of five upper house Western Victoria MPs who has an office in far south-west Victoria. Jaala Pulford's office is in Ballarat, the offices of Gayle Tierney and Andy Meddick are based in Geelong, and Stuart Grimley's office is in Torquay.
The Victorian Parliament was contacted for comment about Ms McArthur's office's relocation.
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