"Mr Smith resigned from the Senate in April and is currently neither a Senator nor an MP. It's hard not to feel taken for granted when you vote in a safe seat in Australia," she suggested.

BUT, all is not as it seems. The sign has been there for ages and was always wrong, Mr Smith tells us. The probable new Labor Member for Bean, Mr Smith said the sign in Civic went up some months after he took his place in the Senate in June 2018, replacing Katy Gallagher, who had been ruled ineligible to sit in Parliament because of her citizenship stuff-up.

The sign, which pointed to his office when he was Senator Smith, still called him an MP.

So, it hadn't magically appeared in the days since last Saturday's election when the south Canberra-based seat was contested for the first time, having been created in a redistribution. "Obviously, I wouldn't have an office that far away from the seat of Bean," Mr Smith said.

The new Bean MP said he would probably move into the Tuggeranong office of retired Canberra MP Gai Brodtmann.

"That would be my intention. It's in the heart of the electorate and easily accessible. I would be looking to do regular mobile offices across the electorate but the current office would be the base," he said. Mr Smith said his old office as a senator in London Circuit removed his name "back in April".

"I don't think it says anything about it being a safe seat," he said, adding it was more about correcting the sign once the poll had been declared.