Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has begun the long road to election day with a nostalgic visit to his country hometown, lunch at mum's and a promise to upgrade rural medical services.
The Labor leader was joined by wife Cath on Monday for a trip to the northeast town of Wangaratta where he grew up, to announce a $10 million funding package for the local hospital.
Wangaratta's hospital would get the extra cash on top of $22.1 million already slated for its redevelopment.
"I couldn't think of a better way of investing $32 million than to make sure the future of this health service is secure," he said alongside Health Minister Jill Hennessy.
The $10 million is on top of the $1.38 billion in health promises made on Sunday which focus on keeping patients closer to their families and communities.
If re-elected, Labor is pledging to supply more paramedics, another 1100 nurses, more specialist medical care for regional Victorians and 10 new or upgraded community hospitals.
In making the community hospital promises, Mr Andrews spoke about his father Bob's battle with cancer and the amount of time he had to spend receiving treatment far away from home and family.
Labor is also promising an extra 500,000 specialist outpatient appointments for regional patients, a 20 per cent increase on current availability.
"(Dad) never complained about having to go to Melbourne to get the care that he needed," Mr Andrews told reporters in Wangaratta.
"But it wasn't right that he had to spend so much of his final time away from his local community, the place he loved.
"And he's no different, there's so many other patients, thousands and thousands of patients and their families away from their community, the people they love in their darkest times."
The first-term Labor government has often been accused by the opposition as being city-centric.
But on Monday, while spending time in the seat of Ovens Valley - safely held by the Nationals - Mr Andrews rebuffed the suggestion.
"I'm from regional Victoria, I'm from this local community," he said.
"I'm not pretending, I'm just being me - I love this place, it was very good to my family whenever we needed it, just like it is to every family."
Like all good sons, Mr Andrews made time for a visit to mum Jan's place for lunch.
Family photos line the tables and art collected over decades hangs on the walls, while Mrs Andrews proudly showed journalists the work required to turn the place around from the rundown cottage it once was.
Victorians go to the polls on November 24.
