Greg Mirabella to be sworn in as Victoria’s newest Senator

The husband of former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella has landed at parliament after winning a Senate vacancy via an unconventional path.

An unconventional path to Canberra taken by Greg Mirabella formally becomes reality next week when he is sworn in as Victoria’s latest addition to the Senate ranks.

“This is not a journey I set out to do,” the Wangaratta farmer and husband of former Liberal MP Sophie said.

But he’s landed at parliament after winning a Senate vacancy created by the retirement of Scott Ryan in a preselection late last year by beating Simon Frost — who had worked for federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg — rather than trying to win the lower house seat formerly occupied by his wife.

Mr Mirabella is also determined to make every day count, acutely aware there is an election on the horizon.

He also knows being No. 3 on the Coalition Senate ticket behind fellow Liberal Sarah Henderson and the Nationals’ Bridget McKenzie doesn’t guarantee parliamentary longevity.

“If I finish up in June I won’t be bursting into tears,” he said.

“It’s actually a privilege to be doing this.

“My pitch to the membership was that the Liberal Party didn’t have a regional-based Senator or more specifically a farmer.

“I’m not a farmer by career, but I am someone who lives in northern Victoria, I am someone on the land and more importantly I have been advocating for farmers for quite some time.”

Soon after moving to Wangaratta, Mr Mirabella was recruited by the Victorian Farmers Federation branch at a time when a major cloud hung over the city’s council-owned saleyards.

They were in dire need of an upgrade.

Greg Mirabella on his property near Wangaratta. Picture: Supplied

If administrators appointed after the council’s sacking in 2013 had their way they would be privately operated today.

“The likely lessee was going to be the owners of the newly established Barnawartha operation,” he said.

“We felt they would run it for a period of time, then close it because they didn’t want the competition.

“We saw the maintenance of publicly owned saleyards as key to keeping yard fees and so on down.”

The upgrade was clinched when commitments were sealed from the Coalition and Labor heading into the 2014 Victorian election.

Labor’s pledge was particularly critical given its poll success, but Wangaratta is also the hometown of Premier Daniel Andrews and his late father Bob was a farmer.

Mr Mirabella also became a voice in the pre weigh, post weigh buyer controversy at the Barnawartha yards in early 2015 and the return of wards to Wangaratta Council which ensured rural areas had a voice in local politics.

Before moving to Wangaratta, the 61-year-old had been a soldier and engineer after growing up at Werribee and spending time working on family fishing boats.

Sophie Mirabella lost 2013 and 2016 federal election battles to independent Cathy McGowan. Picture: Aaron Francis

But events of 2013 when Mrs Mirabella was rolled by independent Cathy McGowan remain a sore point.

McGowan supporters argued the Indi MP had lost her way and her trademark aggression became a turn-off to voters locally.

“What happened to Sophie was very unpleasant to watch,” Mr Mirabella said.

“It was a 12-month character assassination.

“They say politics can be a bloody and brutal business.

“After she lost, of course the commentators made it a truth that she must have lost the seat because she was a nasty person, she was no good or didn’t do anything, everything her opponents campaigned on.

“I was outraged because it simply wasn’t true.”

Wangaratta councillor and Springhurst farmer Harvey Benton has worked alongside Mr Mirabella in farmer politics for more than a decade and fully expects events of 2013 will be resurrected when he gets to Canberra.

Greg Mirabella in his role as Wangaratta branch president of VFF at the Wangaratta yards.

“I will be very frank in that Greg has got some baggage with what happened with Sophie,” he said. “It’s still going to be there, but Greg has got the capability to think very laterally as a rural representative and fight rather tenaciously.

“But the problem I have with party politics is you’ve got to answer to the drum of city people or you just don’t survive.

“It’s the party machine and I think Greg knows that.”

Mr Mirabella’s top priority for however long he is in parliament is to “materially reshape” policy and private and public spending in energy, renewables and recycling.

“I am a proponent of hydrogen,” he said.

“But not in a magic pudding solution way because in the past few years I have worked as a co-developer of some new technology I believe is the way of the future.”

Veterans affairs, rural health and mental health and some basic amendments to the Murray Darling Basin Plan are also on his agenda.

“I will be straight down to business,” he said.

“But at my age I’m not ambitious, I’m not entering politics with the starry eyes of wanting to be Prime Minister or even a Minister that matter.”