Staunch Tony Abbott ally Sophie Mirabella is being groomed for a comeback in the seat she lost at the last election, reports senior correspondent Barry Everingham.
THE LIBERALS really are a political race apart.
Sitting MPs who lose seats are traditionally cut loose and quickly forgotten unless they have something on their former leader, and then a diplomatic appointment is fixed up.
Sophie Mirabella single-handedly lost the plum seat of Indi to, horror of horrors, an Independent.
Was she cut loose?
No way! As a matter of fact, her backers are so out of touch with the feeling of the electorate, she is being groomed for a comeback.
Now, as a former parliamentarian, she gets a multi dollars payout to help her find her way back into the non-political community.
Tony Abbott, in one of his less than infrequent moments of political insanity, thought she owed the nation and the Parliament some extra recompense for the embarrassment her dumping by her former electors heaped on her.
So he fixed up a $70,000 part-time directorship for her at a government-owned submarine making company. That's on top of her generous cutting adrift allowance and parliamentary pension.
He seems to have forgotten how she was regarded by for her former colleagues on all sides of politics and the derision heaped on her after her displays of arrogance on such highly rated TV programs such as Q&A.
It will take many people a long time to forget her derision of Julia Gillard when she, along with Bronwyn Bishop and other Liberals, was gloating while standing in front of 'Ditch the witch' and 'Brown's bitch' banners during the ALP years.
Mirabella could hardly be said to have taken her electorate seriously.
Back in 2007, Independent Australia's deputy editor Sandi Keane organised a Climate Action Debate in Benalla in Mirabella's electorate.
Taking part at the debate were representatives of Labor, the Greens, the Australian Democrats, Family First and the Citizens Electorate Council.
Sophie sent along a media advisor, who was about as forthcoming as her empty chair.
Now, readers will remember that this reporter tried to question Mirabella about her public association with the disgraced and disgraceful former Liberal MP Noel Crichton-Browne in the lead up to the election when she won Indi.
I was unceremoniously directed to "go fuck yourself". Sophie is all class.
And the unanswered questions about the will of her older lover Professor Colin Howard remain.
In view of her reputation and the fact that she lost the Liberals a key regional seat, it is strange to hear reports that some senior Tories are convinced she can again take a place in Parliament.
It has come to our attention that she now operates from a Liberal Party funded "campaign office", which is said to be fully staffed.
We twice put a series to questions to the Victorian spokesman of the Liberal Party and, on each occasion, our calls were not returned.
Our enquiries reveal that the prime mover of the return Mirabella campaign is Tony Snell, state president of the Victorian Liberal Party.
Mr Snell and Mirabella were close when they were both law students at Melbourne University.
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