Moira Deeming, John Pesutto defamation case LIVE updates: Secret ...

John Pesutto, in the audio recording, asks for assurance none of the people Moira Deeming associated with could have any links to the neo-Nazis.

Deeming answered there were none that she could have possibly known about.

“You’re not going to find a single shred of evidence … obviously I’m not a mind reader, maybe there’s some secret Nazi somewhere,” she said.

Deeming continued to complain that the police had escorted the Nazis through the crowd at the rally. Pesutto said he was “not going to expose the team to this”.

Deeming replied, “I have rights and I want you to be assured that it’s not true”.

“There’s no evidence against me. They just turned up. There’s footage to show that we didn’t even look at them. There’s no photos of us talking to them,” she said.

Rodrigo Pintos-Lopez, Pesutto’s then chief-of-staff, can then be heard in the audio going through some basic research he has done into UK anti-trans rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull.

Moira Deeming can now be heard defending herself in the audio recording of the March 19, 2023 meeting.

“Very obviously, I’m not a Nazi. And I don’t support Nazis. They arrived just in black as far as I could tell, they were to the left … everyone thought they were the other people who had got through the lines,” Deeming said.

She said she didn’t realise the men in black were Nazis until they performed the salute while being escorted away by police.

“I was thinking, ‘oh my gosh, there are Nazis here, that’s terrible, but at least the police are taking them away’. That’s it. How was I supposed to know they were Nazis?

“I don’t know why I would be blamed for some random horrible people showing up.”

Moira Deeming (left) and her barrister Sue Chrysanthou arrive at the Federal Court on Tuesday.Credit: Con Chronis/AAP

Deeming said in the audio that everyone condemned the Nazis, and that her attendance at the rally had not yet been covered in the mainstream media.

She said this was because she was already threatening them with defamation over previous coverage of her.

Pesutto repeated it was not about her substantive views about women’s spaces but Nazi links.

“Are you accusing me of actual Nazi links?” Deeming responded.

She said it was the police’s job to deal with the Nazis at the steps of parliament.

A clandestine recording of a 70-minute meeting has started playing in the Federal Court.

In the meeting with Moira Deeming, Opposition Leader John Pesutto explained how he was trying to position the Victorian Liberal Party, and that what happened at the Let Women Speak rally would affect the party’s ability to prosecute that positioning.

“You are an ambassador of our party,” Pesutto said in the secret recording of the March 19, 2023 meeting.

“The arrival of the Nazis, I’ll call them Nazi protesters. I’m going to call them that because that’s how frankly everybody sees them.”

Deeming agreed that they were Nazis.

Sue Chrysanthou, SC, for Deeming, said this showed her client completely accepted that the men were Nazis.

Pesutto said in the meeting that she was now attached to them, as was the party, and he believed the story would only intensify.

“I’m getting clobbered,” he said.

The high-stakes legal battle between ousted Liberal Moira Deeming and Opposition Leader John Pesutto began on Monday.

Deeming’s lawyer Sue Chrysanthou, SC, told the court the recording of the 70-minute meeting between the Victorian Liberal leadership and Deeming would show Pesutto had given false statements.

Chrysanthou said the audio, recorded by deputy Liberal leader David Southwick, was only provided by Pesutto’s legal team last week.

The court was also provided with text messages showing Pesutto considered expelling Deeming on the day of the Let Women Speak rally.

Moira Deeming arrives at the Federal Court on Monday for day one of her defamation trial against Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto.Credit: Jason South

“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 Southwick on the night of March 18, 2023.

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.”

On Saturday, The Age revealed Deeming was coached by political commentator and Liberal operative Peta Credlin on how to defeat the bid to boot her from the party room.

Deeming will be the first to give evidence and face cross-examination during the three-week hearing.

You can read more of our coverage from yesterday here.

Moira Deeming in March 2023 attended the Let Women Speak rally, which was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis on the steps of the Victorian parliament.

Deeming alleges John Pesutto defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser for her role in the gatecrashed rally, while Pesutto is fighting the claim.

Moira Deeming addresses the Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne in March last year.Credit: Youtube

The opposition leader previously said Deeming had associated with organisers and speakers who shared platforms “with people who promote Nazi views or sympathies”. He previously said Deeming was not a fit and proper person to be a member of his party.

Deeming was suspended from the Liberal Party 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.

She remains a member of the broader party but now sits on the crossbench of the Victorian parliament’s upper house.

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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 that 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. Barrister Matthew Collins, KC, 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.