The accusations were made this week after the Indi MP voted with the crossbench to allow refugees on Nauru and Manus Island to be transferred to Australia for medical treatment.

Ms McGowan responded on Friday, but said she would not get involved in "name-calling".

“I don’t see my community as left, my community is really wanting an independent who will stand up for them and don’t do politics,” she said.

"It was a weird comment from my perspective.

"Clearly I represent the electorate, the majority of people in Indi actually voted for me and they’ve done it twice now, so I think I’m reasonably in tune what what my community wants.”

She stood by her decision on medical evacuations.

“Voting for the refugee issues was right, it’s got nothing to do with politics. I was so disappointed that the National Party or the Liberal Party would do something other than what’s right,” Ms McGowan said.

She also criticised the government for its response to the Regions at the Ready report, saying it was months too late and the only action committed to was establishing a regional development and decentralisation committee.

“If you want people to vote for you, you can’t just keep saying ‘we’re going to set up another committee, another committee and another committee. You’ve actually got to commit to action’,” she said.

“It seems so obvious - I can’t see why the Nats and the Libs and Sussan Ley is not advocating for this report to come out.

"She’s one of the assistant ministers for regional development, this is her portfolio area, yet it’s me as an independent who says to the Prime Minister, ‘can you please release it?’.”

Ms Ley said people were more interested in what the government was doing, pointing to what she said was a $100 billion investment into rural Australia.

“I understand Cathy’s passion on this topic but 300 people and organisations also provided input into the report, so it was important a relatively new Minister in this space properly considered what was in it," she said.

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