Did former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella push her political rival?

STILL 10 weeks out from the election and we have our first uproar. Did Sophie Mirabella push her rival out of a photo opp?

Libs punished region for choice of MP

IT’S the first uproar of the unofficial election campaign: Did the former MP drop the shoulder into the woman who replaced her?

Last night the allegation hit Liberal Sophie Mirabella’s tilt to regain the seat off Indi, which she wants to get back from the woman who defeated her in 2013, Cathy McGowan.

Ms Mirabella denied a local newspaper report that during a function on Friday she had woman-handled Ms McGowan, and last night demanded her alleged victim also deny it happened.

But when push came to shove, the incumbent MP would not knock off the suggestion her rival had tried to shove her out of the way of a picture opportunity.

“I think people deserve to know what happened, let’s bring it out into the open because my integrity has been abused,” Ms Mirabella said last night on Sky News.

Ms McGowan wanted to talk of other things — for the sake of Ms Mirabella.

“I can hear just enormous distress, Sophie, and I don’t think it’s appropriate tonight to go into details in what happened on Friday,” she said.

Cathy McGowan.

Sophie Mirabella.

Ms Mirabella made the point that her distress would lessen if Ms McGowan “condemned that wrong reporting” of physical contact.

Ms McGowan said she wanted to talk policy: “I think I’d actually rather leave it, Sophie. I think it’s a time for another place.”

However, Ms McGowan has hinted there was indeed a dust-up at the opening of the Alice Goulding Wing of the Cooinda Village aged care facility.

She had wanted to be photographer with Assistant Minister for Aged Care Ken Wyatt in front of the plaque.

But then, Ms McGowan said in a statement, Ms Mirabella “intended to prevent the photo being taken”.

The local Benalla Ensign newspaper had claimed Ms Mirabella “very publicly pushed” her rival out of the way of the lens. Sophie Mirabella has denied the report.

Ms Mirabella also revealed the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott had punished the voters of Indi for not re-electing her.

The Abbott government withdrawn $10 million in funding for Wangaratta Hospital - because she lost the election.

Ms Mirabella told Sky News she had planned to announce the allocation the week after the election, had she won.

“That is $10 million that Wangaratta hasn’t had because Cathy got elected,” she said.

Peter Dutton was Health Minister at the time.