'We need to discuss Moira': Pesutto wanted to boot Deeming on day ...
Opposition Leader John Pesutto considered expelling Moira Deeming on the day of the Let Women Speak rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis, text messages shown to the Federal Court have revealed.
“I think we might need to discuss Moira. Do we really think her misjudgement and worse won’t keep hurting us. Nazis this time. What next?” Pesutto said in a text to deputy party leader David Southwick on the night of March 18, 2023.
Moira Deeming (centre) arrives at the Federal Court.Credit: Jason South
The court heard Pesutto had also said to former MP Louise Staley, now his chief of staff, that he agreed he should consider expelling her from the Liberal party room. “I don’t even understand why she wants to be in the Liberal Party.”
Sue Chrysanthou, SC, acting for Deeming in her defamation case against Pesutto, told the court on Monday that his legal team had, a week ago, provided an audio recording of a March 19, 2023, meeting between Deeming and the party leadership team.
The meeting, in which Deeming was told she faced expulsion, was held the day after the rally.
Chrysanthou said Southwick had recorded the meeting and despite making two previous affidavits about what happened in it, the recording had only just been produced.
John Pesutto arrives at the Federal Court with his wife Betty on Monday.Credit: Jason South
The court heard the Let Women Speak rally had descended into “mayhem” on the steps of parliament, with several groups of protesters there at once.
Chrysanthou said the neo-Nazis were an entirely separate group to those attending Let Women Speak, and that they were speaking over the top of them and detracted from their message.
She said her client was highly regarded and viewed as courageous for speaking her mind until Pesutto defamed her.
“He had it in for her over her very strongly held, long-held views on safety for women,” she told the court.
Moira Deeming addresses the Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne in March last year.Credit: Youtube
Deeming will be the first to give evidence in the case and face cross-examination, as part of the three-week hearing.
Deeming alleges Pesutto defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser for her role in the gatecrashed rally. Pesutto is fighting the claim. Matthew Collins, KC, for Pesutto, is yet to make his opening statements.
The state opposition leader settled separate defamation action launched against him by UK anti-trans rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull and Melbourne woman Angela Jones, who played leading roles in the rally.
Pesutto and the leadership team had sought to expel Deeming from the parliamentary Liberal Party in the days after the rally.
Neo-Nazis square off against police at the rally.Credit: Chris Hopkins
The opposition leader said she had associated with organisers and speakers who shared platforms “with people who promote Nazi views or sympathies” and that Deeming had failed to disassociate herself from them. Pesutto said she was not a fit and proper person to be a member of his party.
Deeming was instead suspended for nine months in a last-minute compromise deal, but was ultimately expelled weeks later by the party room after threatening to bring in lawyers.
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She remains a member of the broader party but now sits on the crossbench of the Victorian parliament’s upper house.
Deeming’s statement of claim alleges Pesutto defamed her through media releases, a dossier, the March expulsion motion, in press conferences, radio and television interviews, and in news articles.
She is seeking damages for substantial hurt, distress and embarrassment she says she suffered. Her statement of claim said she feared for her safety and financial security as a result of a “campaign” to expel her.
Pesutto, who is contesting the claims, has argued he was expressing an honest opinion, that circulating his position was in the public interest and that he acted reasonably. Collins will also argue Pesutto’s comments were substantially true.
Pesutto says he has repeatedly and unequivocally acknowledged publicly that he does not believe Deeming is a neo-Nazi or white supremacist.
The trial is expected to be uncomfortable for the party and could destabilise Pesutto’s leadership. Liberal MPs, including shadow ministers, will give evidence both for and against their leader, with their private correspondence also likely to be exposed through the trial.
Pesutto has repeatedly said he had exhausted every effort to settle.
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