Vote for Sophie (or else!)
The Benalla Ensign, not exactly my idea of a national purveyor of influence but still a worthy little local newspaper for its region, attended a function in April 2016 for the opening of a new wing of the Cooinda Retirement Village in Benalla.
Also in attendance were Cathy McGowan who had taken the federal seat of Indi from previous incumbent Sophie Mirabella, and Liberal Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt. Mirabella was still pretty upset at having lost the seat in 2013 and, being a Liberal, she considered that she had a God given right to hold that seat for as long as it suited her.
During the formalities at Cooinda it was alleged that Mirabella had pushed McGowan out of the way so that she wouldn’t be photographed with the hapless Wyatt. In fact, it seems that Mirabella had pushed Wyatt out of the way so that he wouldn’t be photographed with McGowan. Even so, the Benalla Ensign reported that it was Mirabella who pushed McGowan. Subsequently and belatedly the Benalla Ensign published an apology to Mirabella:
“In our April 20 edition our article ‘‘Awkward encounter’’ referred to Mrs Sophie Mirabella pushing Ms Cathy McGowan out of the way in order to obstruct a photo being taken.
We take this opportunity to clarify that this reference was a mistake.
There was no physical contact that occurred at the time and Ms McGowan was not pushed.
We apologise to Mrs Mirabella for the mistake and for any hurt or embarrassment this may have caused.”
That you may think would be the end of this rather trivial encounter, but our Sophie is no shrinking violet and is not one to let sleeping dogs lie, so she decided to sue the Benalla Ensign in defamation. The basic idea of defamation law is simple. It is an attempt to balance the private right to protect one’s reputation with the public right to freedom of speech. Defamation law allows people to sue those who say or publish false and malicious comments. Anything that injures a person’s reputation or standing in the community can be defamatory and it is for the complainant to establish that the publication of the alleged defamation caused economic loss or other damage. We saw this principle in operation recently with the action taken by Rebel Wilson against Bauer Media where Wilson was awarded a record payout of $4.5 million and costs in excess of one million dollars for defamatory and malicious articles published by Bauer about Wilson.
Sophie had not had a good run with the local electorate having publicly stated to a live television audience that the voters (of Indi) had ‘cost’ themselves a multi-million upgrade to the Wangaratta Hospital by not re-electing her.
“I had a commitment for a $10 million allocation to the Wangaratta hospital that if elected I was going to announce a week after the election.”
“That is $10m that Wangaratta hasn’t had because Cathy (McGowan) got elected.”
This it seems is the way that the Liberals do business. The decision on whether to provide proper hospital services is not based on need but on whether the Liberal candidate in your area gets up: the voters of Indi thought they lived in a democracy and they voted for the person best equipped to represent them in Canberra. But that, sadly, is not the way to get health funding into your community under a Liberal government.
So, Sophie was off to court to sue the newspaper over what had been acknowledged as a mistake by the newspaper and for which they had belatedly apologised. McGowan told the court that she had not been pushed, but maintained that she had witnessed Mirabella pushing Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt to prevent him appearing in a photo with her and, in McGowan’s estimation, the substance of the newspaper story was true just the details of who pushed whom were in doubt. Mr Wyatt told the trial Mrs Mirabella “moved around in front of me, put her hands on my chest and asked that I don’t [allow the photo] because it would legitimise an alliance to the Liberal party”.
Never one to miss an opportunity to utilise the veiled insult, our Sophie was reported as saying:
“I’m not a sensitive, delicate wallflower,” she said through tears. “I’ve put up with a lot of stuff that hasn’t been true being published … but this, this was the last straw”.
“This was accusing me of pushing an older woman, an older woman … who’s old enough to be an elderly citizen, a grandmother,” said the 49-year-old Mirabella of her adversary, the 63-year-old McGowan.
So, the jury sat through five days of evidence and arguments in the Wangaratta County Court trial, taking just 45 minutes to find that Ms Mirabella had, on the balance of probabilities, been defamed. Damages will now be assessed by the judge and will be made known next week. A judge in assessing any damages will take into account the economic loss suffered by the plaintiff and can be mitigated recognising that the newspaper has made an apology to the plaintiff. So, it could be a pyrrhic victory for Sophie who, since leaving office was appointed to the board of the Australian Submarines Corporation Ltd by the Liberal party and in more recent times has been hired by mining magnate Gina Rinehart as a lobbyist, for her mining interests, in Canberra. So the damages could be just nominal as her economic loss is probably not significant and she is now probably making more money than she could have in her political career. We shall see.
Generally speaking it is not considered good form for politicians to sue other people or institutions for defamation or insults largely because our democratic arrangements and wherever the Westminster system of government adheres, grants politicians open slather to lie, mislead, defame, insult and ridicule within the confines of the parliament under the shroud of parliamentary privilege with absolute protection from legal redress or from being sued. For a politician then to seek to sue when they are defamed or insulted tends to tip the balance of what is fair and reasonable very much in their favour.
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Return to home pageSophie, you can’t help insults. The woman ain’t old enough to collect the pension. Some are grandmothers at your age.
Off topic, but can I reinclude this?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/06/can-coalition-mp-bechamel-foreclaws-really-live-on-40-a-day#comment-115494736
Bron Bishop, O’Dwyer, Cash, Julia Banks (arguably) Hanson…the list goes on. Is outright vulgarity an essential prerequisite for Tory women?
And Mirabella.
The story of how Sophie entered politics is a tawdry one. She shacked up with a guy 40 years older than her who bankrolled her campaign. She promised to employ him in her office if she won and then reneged on the promise and split up with him.
”As she said to me the other day, if she wins this election, she is made for life,” Colin (her lover) wrote to Mervyn (his son) at the time.
Despite marrying another guy, she had power of attorney and was the sole beneficiary of Colin’s will even though he had two children. There were questions about the care (or lack thereof) that the Mirabella’s provided to Colin after he got Alzheimer’s and they rented a cottage for him near their country farmhouse.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/power-love-and-money-20110922-1knb7.html
Ouch, stomach hurts.
Sounds like events involving certain WA MP’s.
What a vicious little non-entity that runt of a Pit-Bull Mirabella is… but then…. she’s standard ruling rabble material…
“Sophie had not had a good run with the local electorate having publicly stated to a live television audience that the voters (of Indi) had ‘cost’ themselves a multi-million upgrade to the Wangaratta Hospital by not re-electing her.
“I had a commitment for a $10 million allocation to the Wangaratta hospital that if elected I was going to announce a week after the election.”
“That is $10m that Wangaratta hasn’t had because Cathy (McGowan) got elected.”
This it seems is the way that the Liberals do business.”
It is not only the Liarbrals who do business this way, it is the standard operating procedure for the National$ Party.
Consider the 2004 Federal election; the LNP Minister for Roads sat on about $2.4 BILLION of regional and rural road funding to “encourage” regional and rural voters to support the National$ … then the $2.4 BILLION vanished into thin air without being spent on roads.
Consider the squattocracy ladies all dolled up in their regimental couture, swarming into town businesses and demanding that the proprietors vote fo the National$ or lose their business. Most businesses take a neutral position during the invasion and hold their counsel after the election.
One business man was absent when his wife was invaded. HIs response was straight forward; close their credit accounts on seven days notice under threat of bankruptcy proceedings. “I got paid in less than the usual two year waiting period and so saved a lot of money on unnecessary accountancy fees and otherwise unprofitable accounts” he said.
Women supporting Adulterers support Joyce (National$).
Surely now Cathy Mc Gowan has the right to sue Sophie for defamation after calling her an “elderly person” implying that she is too old for the job??
The tragedy for poor, congenitally nasty Sophi is that the actions she was accused of are totally in character.
These Liberals!!
More money than sense!
A trivial affair resulting in misusing legal process to make inconsequential storms with claims of defamation!
FFS …..The aged are getting short shift by the Liberal Party
There are children, starving and in poverty, and a large number of people being homeless with nowhere to sleep!
There are many can not get a job, and many other issues of import occurring, and this trivial matter takes prominence in the scheme of things !!!!
Surely pushing the 64 year old Ken Wyatt was equally offensive
A vicious nasty piece of work who is well suited to work for another vicious nasty piece of work… they deserve one another!
Taking a wild guess, being familiar with the region, one would assume McGowan’s reputation has been enhanced, further, amongst the local electorate.
andrew smith,
maybe so but I dont think McGowan covered herself in glory from the court exchange I saw reported
Mirabella. Christ! Just another two-legged LNP tapeworm. #LNPfail
Mirrabella – a spoilt brat that outgrew her nappies but not her tantrums, yet another one that never learned to share as a child and carried it into adulthood
So thanks to Sophie the sook these folks missed out on hospital funding, and now possibly they’ll lose a local publication. Nice one Mirabella
In spite of Mirabella’s ‘best’ efforts to lock-in a hospital upgrade to her re-election, Wangaratta is finally going to receive its much needed funding:
https://www.bordermail.com.au/story/5302658/hospitals-hard-work-rewarded-with-major-22-million-upgrade/
On gender equity in the LNP – seriously – while women make a up a small percentage in the LNP, they do behave exactly like their male colleagues. While the likes of Barnaby Joyce enacts his privileges by shacking up with much younger nubile female, dumping wife & daughters …
… Sophie sees men in a more “traditional” sense such as “cash cows” (or should that be cash-bulls?), whatever, greed, opportunism, self-obsessed and sneering with superiority, whatever your gender, those are the qualities to be a Tory.
Oh , good one Mirabella. As if regional newspapers haven’t got enough struggle without your punitive nasty action. Your local constituents will LOVE you for bringing the Benalla Ensign to its knees – NOT.
She has a rich mentor Gina, she is in good company isn’t she ,learning all the tricks of the trade,
Shame on you both. Bastards of this worlds stealing money from everywhere they are able too,