Two politicians have returned to the North East after spending time in Melbourne before the city went into stage four lockdown.
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The Victorian Parliament's upper house held a sitting on Tuesday, but MPs took different approaches to attending.
Tania Maxwell from Derryn Hinch's Justice Party travelled to Melbourne on Sunday ahead of the sitting week, but chose to return home to Wangaratta on Tuesday after tougher coronavirus restrictions were announced.
"I have taken stringent measures during my time in Melbourne to protect myself with PPE and have isolated myself from other people," she said.
"There was a difficult choice to be made between two central priorities.
"One, is the importance to have the opportunity to scrutinise government, the other is the very strong advice from a health perspective to defer Parliament."
She the decision to return home was made after careful consideration and was in the best interests of the community.
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In contrast, Liberal Democrat Tim Quilty attended Tuesday's upper house sitting.
"I do not especially want to be here," he told Parliament.
"I was up north, in the disease-free areas.
"I had to drive down here into the hot zone at risk to my family and at risk to the community of my being here.
"However, this is my job - my job is to hold the government to account."
Mr Quilty was critical of the government's approach to "shock" people with added coronavirus restrictions.
"Northern Victoria is being laid to waste by these restrictions," he said.
"We are being ruined by people in Melbourne who do not understand what they are doing and do not care.
"The Chief Health Officer has no jurisdiction over the Parliament.
"It is not his job to tell me if I can come or if we can sit."
He used his time in Parliament to ask the government why border checkpoints were not around Melbourne, rather than in communities along the Murray River, and criticised the security licencing process after issues that led to Melbourne's second coronavirus wave.
Labor Minister Shaun Leane took a shot back.
"As Mr Quilty does from time to time, he used it as an opportunity to slander everyone he could, including MPs and ministers," he said.
"In Mr Quilty's world everyone is bad and everyone is evil and everyone is corrupt, which is I think a little bit sad for him."
