Former Liberal MP is suing rural Victorian newspaper over an article claiming she pushed fellow candidate in lead-up to 2016 election

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Former Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella has cried in court while describing the moment she discovered a country Victorian newspaper had accused her of pushing a political opponent.

Mirabella is suing weekly newspaper Benalla Ensign and its editor at the time, Libby Price, in the Victorian county court over an April 2016 article about an encounter with Indi MP Cathy McGowan.



Mirabella, who lost the seat to McGowan in 2013, says the article defamed her by falsely claiming she pushed McGowan out of the way of a photograph for her own political benefit.

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“This was just a total whack as a candidate,” she told the court on Friday. “I knew it would totally blacken my name and make me out as something I was not.”

The visibly upset 49-year-old said there was no ambiguity in the article, headlined “Awkward encounter”, which she believes labelled her as an “assaulter”.

“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.



“To be called someone who assaults other women, it was disgusting.”

Mirabella said the moment she read the article, she knew it would be an uphill battle to fix the situation.

“I knew I didn’t push her; other people there knew I didn’t push her,” she told a jury of six people at Wangaratta. “It was the most gut-wrenching thing.”

Mirabella said she was worried about what people would think, not just in the context of a federal election, but within her immediate community.

“This was accusing me of pushing an older woman, an older woman ... who’s old enough to be an elderly citizen, a grandmother,” 49-year-old Mirabella said.

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“What are the other parents going to think? ‘Here’s this woman who’s put herself up as a candidate, going around and pushing people’.”



Mirabella cried again as she described a televised debate in Wangaratta with McGowan, then aged 62, a day after the article was published on 20 April 2016.



“Here’s another woman. Surely she would have the decency to correct the record and say, ‘Sophie Mirabella did not push me’. National TV, a great opportunity,” Mirabella said.

“You look someone in the eye and you say, ‘go on mate, tell them I didn’t push you’. But that didn’t happen.”

Mirabella said Price, a former ABC journalist with 30 years of experience, did not call to ask her version of events.

“So slap bang, the first I heard of it is the article,” Mirabella said.

She said Price made it worse by subsequently giving a media interview to say she “stood by the story”.

“I was hesitant to report it but felt it was in the public interest for people to know this sort of unacceptable behaviour had occurred,” Price was quoted as saying in an article that Mirabella read to the court.

Mirabella said the pushing allegation was picked up by many media outlets, including satirical website The Shovel, which ran a story with the headline: “Softer, calmer Sophie Mirabella pushes Cathy McGowan, rather than punching her in the face”.



“Once they start making fun of you about a particular thing, it sticks even more, it’s worse,” Mirabella said. “You can’t really fight humour, can you?”

Price and the newspaper are defending the article, with their barrister telling the court its content was substantially true.

The trial before a jury of six people and judge Michael Macnamara continues.