Victoria’s opposition leader, John Pesutto, considered expelling MP Moira Deeming from the Liberal party hours after she addressed a rally gatecrashed by neo-Nazis, before he “tarred” her with the “Nazi brush”, the federal court has heard.
The high-stakes defamation battle brought against Pesutto by the ousted Liberal MP began in the federal court on Monday, with Deeming expected to begin giving evidence as early as Tuesday.
The ousted Liberal MP has accused Pesutto of falsely portraying her as a Nazi sympathiser after she spoke at the March 2023 “Let Women Speak” rally.
The court heard that a 70-minute recording of a meeting – between Deeming, the party’s Victorian leadership team and members of Pesutto’s staff the day after the rally – will also be played on Tuesday.
In her opening address, Deeming’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou SC, told justice David O’Callaghan that Pesutto “had it in for” the MP over her “long-held views for safety for women”.
She showed the court text messages between Pesutto and Louise Staley, a former Liberal MP who lost her seat at the November 2022 election.
In one text, referring to an article published in The Australian on the day of the rally, Staley said: “Moira Deeming at rally with neo-Nazis today.”
Pesutto replied: “This only gets worse from here. I don’t even understand why she wants to be in the Liberal party.”
Staley said Pesutto needed to “consider expelling her from the party for consorting with Nazis”.
Pesutto replied: “Agree.”
Chrysanthou said this was at odds with Pesutto’s affidavit, which stated he attended a meeting with Deeming and members of the party’s leadership team the following day – a Sunday – to allow her to make a statement denouncing the neo-Nazis who gatecrashed the rally.
The day after the rally, at 12.26pm, Pesutto drafted a press release in his phone notes, shown to the court, which said “following our discussion, Mrs Deeming tendered her resignation as a member of the Liberal Party”, the court heard.
“As at 12.26pm, It was Mr Pesutto’s intention to force a resignation of my client. If he couldn’t achieve that, he claimed to expel her. That’s not what he said in his affidavit,” Chrysanthou said.
The meeting, held at about 5.30pm that day, was attended by Pesutto,and senior MPs David Southwick, Georgie Crozier and Matthew Bach, the court heard. Pesutto’s then chief of staff, Rodrigo Pintos Lopez, was also in attendance.
After the meeting, Pesutto issued a statement signalling his intention to expel Deeming from the party. Deeming was initially suspended from the party room for nine months before she was expelled in May last year.
Chrysanthou also said Pesutto’s legal team would incorrectly argue that before March last year, Deeming had a bad reputation.
“Reputation is apparently an issue in this place. Mr Pesutto comes to this court and asks your honour to find that, before he tarred her with the Nazi brush in March of last year, she had a bad reputation,” she told the court.
“The evidence that is before your honour points overwhelmingly to the contrary.”
Chrysanthou said this evidence includes Pesutto asking Deeming to apply for a parliamentary whip position after he was elected Liberal leader in December 2022.
Three months later, Deeming was among the speakers at a “Let Women Speak” rally, which she also helped organised, held on the steps of Victoria’s parliament on 18 March 2023.
The event was co-organised by the UK gender-critical activist Kellie-Jay Keen as part of her tour of Australia and New Zealand in which it was claimed that the push for transgender rights was silencing, and discriminating against, women.
In his defence document, Pesutto argued he “repeatedly and unequivocally acknowledged publicly that he does not believe Deeming to be a neo-Nazi, a white supremacist, or anything of similar substance or effect”.
He admitted to conveying some imputations, including that Deeming associated with speakers at the event who had “known links with neo-Nazis and white supremacists” and that she was not a “fit and proper person to be a member of the Victorian parliamentary Liberal party” under his leadership.
In court documents, Pesutto said he would rely on the defences of honest opinion, contextual truth, public interest and qualified privilege.
The defamation trial is expected to run for three weeks and threatens to expose instability in the party.
Other witnesses in the case will include federal Liberal senator Sarah Henderson, Deeming’s husband, Andrew, former Liberal candidate Warren Mundine and current and former Victorian Liberal MPs.
The trial continues.
