Federal Member for Indi Sophie Mirabella (Panopoulos) is fully supportive of Malcolm Turnbull, despite the recent spate of criticism against him by members of the Coalition.

The Federal MP whose safe Liberal seat covers northeast Victoria, spoke to Neos Kosmos English Edition (NKEE), last week, about the current state of affairs in the Liberal Party.

Mrs Mirabella was quick to dismiss comments made by Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey who called Mr Turnbull “arrogant and politically inexperienced.”

She also disputed that the Leader of the Opposition is facing open dissent within his own ranks.

“There was one member of the Coalition who made comments and he’s been in Parliament for 20 years and he is known for making these sorts of comments,” Mrs Mirabella underscored when referring to Mr Tuckey.

Mrs Mirabella argued that the Liberals are not preoccupied with inner-party wrangling but are “holding the government accountable about the large debt and deficit [they have created].”

However she accepted that the last few weeks have not been the best for the Liberal Party following the OzCar fiasco, yet she stressed that this issue should not overshadow the work of the Opposition.

“People don’t want you to navel gaze. They want you to get on with the job of holding the government accountable,” Mrs Mirabella said.

The OzCar scandal, which became an embarrassment for the Liberal Party and its leader, involved a fictitious email presented by the Opposition in Parliament that revealed supposed links between the PM Kevin Rudd, the Treasurer Wayne Swan and financial facilitation of a car dealer in Queensland.

The whole case collapsed when it was established that the email a fake.

Mrs Mirabella asserted that the OzCar scandal belongs in the past and that everybody should move on. “People…don’t want the Opposition and the government to waste time on this OzCar matter, they want to move on to issues that matter.”

She was fulsome in her defence of Mr Turnbull and the way he is currently performing and spared no epithets to state her support for his leadership.

“I find Mr Turnbull a very hard working, extremely intelligent and very engaging individual.”

Mrs Mirabella even empathized with Mr Turnbull saying that “he is probably got the most difficult job in the Parliament, because he is the Leader of the Opposition when a new government is elected.”

On the issue of multiculturalism and subsequent policies, Mrs Mirabella was adamant that the Labor Party should not be taking the credit for being the first to adopt such policies and argued against being one of the main reasons why Greek Australians have traditionally supported the Labor Party.

“If you ask lots of older Greeks what is multicultural policy, I don’t think they will be able to explain that to you, so I don’t think its correct to say that Greeks embraced the Labor Party because of the multicultural policy.”

When asked to give her own definition of multiculturalism she outlined a vision of Australia where social cohesiveness is the outmost value “where everyone is the same under the law.”

She defended the Howard era when the word multiculturalism was conveniently struck out from the official lexicon, pointing to the example of John Howard’s senior political advisor, Arthur Sinodinos who is of Greek descent.

Mrs Mirabella like many other working women has to juggle a hectic work schedule and being a new mother.

However was grateful of the help she was receiving from her husband and her mother to cope with an erratic schedule that a 13 month daughter can entail.

One of the greatest challenges facing the Greek Australian community is the preservation of the language for future generations, according to Mrs Mirabella.

She believes that the role of distance learning programs will become more accommodating and important as families live in more distant locations or their restricting schedules hinder the undertaking of such an activity.