Victorian Liberal MP Andrew Elsbury ran into strife this week in his efforts to form a ‘Parliamentary Friends of FYROM’ group.

The inaugural meeting he called at Parliament House last Tuesday was unable to achieve a quorum. Any parliamentary group must have at least seven members to be formed.

The only other elected parliamentarian who joined Mr Elsbury in Meeting Room 1 was Ms Colleen Hartland, the Greens Senator from the Upper House, who like Mr Elsbury, represents Melbourne’s Western Metropolitan Region.

Christine Fyffe, Deputy Speaker of the Victorian Parliament was also in attendance. An officer of the parliament must attend for procedural purposes when any parliamentary group is to be formed.

Originally, email invitations from Mr Elsbury (who was chair designate of the group), asked his fellow MPs to join him at an “inaugural meeting for Parliamentary Friends of (sic) Macedonia.”

After advice that Australia does not recognise that nomenclature, the name of the proposed group was changed within 24 hours of the initial invitation going out.

Following the meeting, and with the group’s change of name having been publicised, it also incurred the wrath of members of Victoria’s FYROM community.

Mr Ico Najdovski, secretary of the “(sic) Macedonian Community Council” wrote to all Victorian MPs expressing his opposition and that of “the 50,000 (sic) Macedonians in the Victorian community” to the establishment of a parliamentary group under the FYROM title.

Mr Najdovski says in his letter that the establishment of a parliamentary group under the name FYROM was equivalent to Australia being referred to as ‘the Former British Colony of Australia”, adding that “the establishment of this offensive and insulting group” should be abandoned.

Neos Kosmos understands there are no plans to arrange a future meeting of a parliamentary group under either name.

While Mr Elsbury declined Neos Kosmos’ invitation to comment on the matter, a Victorian Government spokesman said “any parliamentary friends group needs support from enough members before a group can be formed, and any such group does not represent the view of the government or of a particular party.”