Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto’s bid to expel Moira Deeming from the parliamentary party room was meant to be his making. Instead it’s more likely than not to be his undoing.
Just one week ago, he said expelling Deeming was a “necessary step” to ensure the Liberal party was an “effective opposition” and “ready to govern” come the 2026 state election.
This is the same party that has been wiped from power across mainland Australia, in part due to perceptions of being out of touch with mainstream views.
“There wasn’t really any alternative but to do this,” he said last week.
Somehow, he found one.
After a marathon two-hour meeting on Monday, MPs unanimously decided to suspend Deeming from the party room for nine months and strip her of the upper house whip position after she attended an anti-transgender rally which, according to organisers, was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis who were photographed performing the Nazi salute last weekend.
Pesutto justified the backflip by saying he had received “new materials” from Deeming at 6.30am on Monday that included concessions that he says he had been demanding since a meeting held on 18 March.
He said they included condemnation of some of the social media posts of women she attended the rally with. He did not release the materials, nor has Deeming, who released a statement on Monday evening conceding that attending the event “may have been an error of judgement” while also tweeting a denial that she condemned the women who organised or spoke at it.
“As I have stated, I unreservedly condemn the poor taste Nazi jokes and Nazi analogies listed in the annex of evidence against me,” she said.
“I believe I am innocent of all imputations and accusations of any connection whatsoever with nazism in any shape or form and any bigotry whatsoever toward the LGBTQI+ community.”
“I support John Pesutto and the leadership team and look forward to working with them into the future to win government in 2026.”
Some Liberal MPs who backed Deeming and spoke on the condition of anonymity say the information provided by the upper house member in Monday’s 11th hour email was not new. They say Pesutto entered Monday’s party room meeting adamant no compromise could be reached and that Deeming had to be expelled, but “changed his point of view halfway through”.
Pesutto confirmed he called the meeting and spoke on the motion. With the exception of his leadership team, no other Liberal MPs spoke in favour of the motion.
Then came time for those to speak against it, which included Kim Wells, widely considered a moderate and a Pesutto ally, and upper house MPs Joe McCracken and Richard Riordan. Deeming was said to have moved people to tears as she made her case to stay in the party she loves.
Deeming and those three MPs argued that the case against her wasn’t strong enough to warrant an expulsion – they said she should not be found guilty by association. They argued the move to expel Deeming went against freedom of speech, thought and association – philosophies the Liberals hold dear.
“You could see the visible change in the room after she spoke. Those that felt that they would be voting in favour of the expulsion to support the leader were questioning their approach,” a Liberal MP said.
It was apparently at this point that Pesutto began to change his tune. Even with ally Sam Groth interrupting his Fijian holiday to attend the vote, Pesutto was clearly nervous he did not have the support of enough MPs to pass the expulsion motion. Why else would you not bring it to a vote?
Pesutto, however, maintains he “had the numbers” but was showing leadership by being “sensible, reasonable and fair” to a rookie MP. It’s hard to see anyone buying this just days after his team were resolute in saying there could be no compromise.
The expulsion was meant to be a signal to the public, the Liberal membership and his parliamentary colleagues that extreme views will no longer be tolerated in the party he was committed to modernising.
Instead, what Pesutto has done has given Deeming and anti-transgender activists with fringe views an even bigger platform, weakened his leadership and reinforced the view pushed by the Labor party that the opposition is a “nasty, hateful little rabble”.
One could argue it has made the possible of modernising even harder, given he will now have to work to rebuild the goodwill and trust with many MPs in his bitterly divided ranks.
However divided they are, one thing they can all agree on, however, is it will be tough for Pesutto to survive this.
