Sophie Mirabella - Political Career

Political Career

Mirabella has been a member of the Liberal Party since 1987. She became well known during the debate on Australia becoming a republic as a prominent advocate for retaining the constitutional monarchy, and was an elected member of the 1998 Constitutional Convention.

In 2001 Mirabella won preselection as the Liberal candidate to succeed Lou Lieberman as the member for Indi, standing against Sussan Ley, which she won in the 2001 federal election with a vote of 61.15% on a two-party preferred basis. Mirabella received a well above-average 5.6% swing to her in the 2004 federal election, giving her 66.3% of the two-party preferred vote and making Indi a safe Liberal seat. In the latest election, she holds her seat with a margin of 19.88% two party preferred against Labor.

Within the federal government, Mirabella sat in the backbench until 2007. During this time, in 2005, she attracted public attention as a key member of an informal "ginger group" of Liberal backbenchers. She chaired this group with Victorian Senator Mitch Fifield. The group argued for "tax reform" (in essence, tax cuts paid for by reductions in government spending), sparking public debate on the topic. Although Fifield stepped away from the group after budget cuts in 2005, Mirabella continued for a time as the group's chair.

While on the backbench, Mirabella took a strong stance on the prominent issue of asylum seekers, criticizing a group of four fellow Liberal backbenchers, including Petro Georgiou and Judi Moylan, for opposing government policy on mandatory detention. In August 2005, she called for Muslim women to be required to remove their head dress when posing for photo identification.

Mirabella has been an advocate of voluntary student unionism (VSU) and strongly supported the legislation proposed by Brendan Nelson.