Geelong leaders visited Canberra on Wednesday telling the Coalition and Labor the push to relocate Comcare staff would not hurt the agency and promised to bring $414 million a year to the city.

However, Comcare chief executive Jennifer Taylor poured cold water on the proposal, saying its 637 staff were best located in its existing offices as they administered workers’ compensation and regulated work health and safety for federal government and private sector employees.

"Our workforce is located in areas where we can maximise the effectiveness of this work," she said.

"The largest number of government employers and employees are in Canberra, so this is where most of our staff are based."

The agency, which has 413 staff in the national capital and others in Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, is one of several government agencies that have caught the eye of regional towns under the Coalition's push to relocate public servants.

"Comcare’s critical services as a regulator and claims manager demand that we are responsive and accessible," Ms Taylor said.

"Relocation would severely limit our service delivery."

City of Greater Geelong Council and its partners in the push for Comcare jobs have not approached the agency directly in relation to the bid.

Geelong began pitching for Comcare jobs in September after the Coalition announced it would relocate public servants to the regions under a policy championed by former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce and ex-deputy leader Fiona Nash.

The city, home to jobs at the National Disability Insurance Agency, the Victorian government's Transport Accident Commission and WorkSafe Victoria, says it could become a social insurance hub.

TAC chief executive Joe Calafiore joined Geelong's acting mayor Peter Murrihy lobbying the Coalition and Labor on Wednesday, saying his agency's 2009-12 relocation to the city from Melbourne had helped improved its finances and services.

"We're here saying it can go well if it's done in the right way," Mr Calafiore said.

"As the CEO of a government agency that was one of the first in Australia to be moved lock, stock and barrel out of a city and into a regional town, I have been both a participant and keen observer of the decentralisation debate over many years, and am never ceased to be amazed by the volume of the 'why this can’t work' brigade," he said.

"From first-hand experience I can tell you these 'reasons' are largely myths."

Mr Calafiore rejected arguments that moving agencies into the regions can stop them hiring talented staff, and said despite a short and temporary hit to its performance during its $100-million move, the TAC's relocation had helped it improve.

He admitted decentralisation was not a fix-all for ailing regional economies but said TAC's move had helped Geelong transition from its manufacturing base.

"Relocating the TAC here was just one part of the broader agenda to get the town’s economy moving," he said.

"While hundreds of new jobs in a regional town is nothing to be sneezed at, it’s no magic fix."

Mr Calafiore also admitted that TAC's relocation - involving a relatively short distance - could not be a model for all other agency moves, and said Comcare would need to keep some presence in Canberra.

The Coalition's project to relocate government agencies began in controversy with the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority's troubled move to Armidale from Canberra, which saw an exodus of staff from the agency and volatile performance levels.

As the Nationals announced the Coalition would expand its relocation of government jobs to the regions in April last year, the party said agencies would have to justify their presence in Canberra or face being moved.

Mr Joyce criticised the latest set of decentralisation projects announced in the federal budget, which he referred to as a "silly game" where the policy was technically, but not legitimately, being pursued.