Roy Butler does not describe his first seven months as Barwon MP as 'fun'.
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"I always say to people, 'it's a massive honour and a massive privilege and the support across the electorate has been incredibly humbling, but it's not what you'd call fun'," he said.
The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers representative was elected at the end of March. He said the first three months were 'pretty horrendous'.
"I had nine staff to recruit, I had three offices to set up and all of the calls and emails kept coming in," Mr Butler said. His first day in parliament was a blur.
Having to cover such a huge electorate as Barwon, Mr Butler said his family had had to take a back seat.
"It's not very often you have a day where you're not doing something. In the two weeks of the school holidays I wouldn't have seen any of my family at all except I took my daughter on the road with me."
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But despite all the negative, the MP has a simple response when people ask him if he had his time over would he do it all again.
"I always say 'yes'. I wouldn't want to be on my death bed and think about how I had the opportunity to do something that improves things for people in regional areas and didn't take it," Mr Butler said.
Mr Butler said when he became a politician - although he doesn't like that word because he thinks it has negative associations - he wanted to do things different to what had been done in the past.
"I put my personal number out there, it's the same number I've had for 20 years. People contact me at all hours of the day on the mobile. I am glad they've slowed down on the 5.30am phone calls though," he said.
No matter how they contact him - be it through a call, email or social media message - Mr Butler said he was determined to get an answer to each issue.
"We've never out anyone in the corner and not gotten back to them. We even speak to them if they're cranky," he said.
"The only thing is that I'd said to my staff if someone is yelling and swearing they should terminate the phone call and let them know we'll speak to them at a later time."
Mr Butler said he believed his job was to take the issues of the constituents to parliament.
The most common concern has been water.
"People in Barwon are worried about whether or not they're going to have clean water. They're worried about the general store closing down. Without water, those communities are stuffed," he said.
In his first months of the role, Mr Butler said the most unexpected part had been the way he was treated by other politicians.
"I expected a lot more hostility when I got into parliament. But I haven't given them any opportunity to be hostile. When someone does something good, I'm happy to promote that, and when someone does something bad I don't go after their character and criticise them personally," he said.
"I do criticise policy but I don't try and denigrate people because I think that my constituents are over that kind of game play. They just want honesty."
Mr Butler said he was always getting in trouble for telling people he didn't need to be Barwon's MP.
"If the electorate turns around in three-and-a-half years and decides I'm not doing a good job and they want someone else I'll say 'thanks very much for the opportunity, I hope I've left the electorate in a better place than when I started'," he said.
"I'll go about my business and be able to see my family a lot more. At the same time, if they want me to come back I did commit to two terms, so I'll honour that commitment."