Labor has asked the auditor general to investigate Sophie Mirabella’s claims her former electorate did not receive $10m in hospital funding because it voted her out, arguing it smacks of “political retribution”.
On Thursday in a Sky debate the former member for Indi said: “I had a commitment for a $10m 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.”
Mirabella attempted to clarify the comments on Friday by saying: “it’s about who is a strong advocate when there are dozens of really good cases of hospitals all over regional Australia fighting to get on top of the list.
“It’s about who has the ability and the knowledge and the contacts in government to go to the top of the list, Cathy wasn’t able to do it, I will be.”
However, Mirabella does not appear to have retracted her claim she had a commitment for the funding before the election.
Labor’s health spokeswoman Catherine King has referred the issue to the auditor general, asking him to investigate what she said appeared to be an act of “political retribution”.
“Punishing the people of Indi for electing an independent MP is not legitimate grounds on which to base decisions about the expenditure of a significant sum of taxpayer money.”
The current health minister, Sussan Ley, said “neither I, nor my department, is aware of any public commitment to give Wangaratta Hospital $10m”.
But Ley did not rule out that a private commitment had existed. “I am not going to speculate on private discussions that may have occurred during an election campaign, let alone those I was not even privy to,” she said.
A spokesman for Peter Dutton, who was shadow health minister before the 2013 election and health minister after, referred Guardian Australia to Mirabella’s attempts to clarify the claim of a commitment, but did not answer questions about whether Dutton was aware of such a commitment.
Mirabella has been contacted for comment.
