Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto is on a collision course with the religious right of his party in a clash sure to produce reverberations nationally.
Moira Deeming, a religious conservative MP, was suspended for nine months by the Liberals in March over her involvement with an anti-trans rights rally organised by activists that Mr Pesutto alleged were associated with neo-Nazis.
She is threatening legal action against the progressive leader because she alleges he reneged on a promise to publicly affirm she had no neo-Nazi affiliations if she served the suspension.
Ms Deeming wrote to colleagues alleging the breach of agreement and said that Mr Pesutto’s “continued silence is damaging my name and reputation, my family and my mental health”.
But moderate Liberals warned on Thursday evening that any such action would lead to Ms Deeming’s expulsion from the party.
Former leader Matthew Guy lent his support to Mr Pesutto over what he described as a “couple of terrorists”.
Another MP currently clashing with Mr Pesutto is, like Ms Deeming, a religious conservative, Renee Heath.
It emerged at the last election that Ms Heath is a member of a fundamentalist church whose spiritual leader has directed members to execute a takeover of the Liberal Party branches.
She was the minute-taker for the fateful meeting that led to Ms Deeming’s suspension, and claims to have faced bullying from some in the party after her record of events was contested by others.
The divide sets Mr Pesutto on a collision course with conservative and religious MPs in the Victorian Liberals, who have become increasingly powerful in the party membership.
The religious right were only recently excluded from the seat of Aston, where their preferred candidate, Christian school teacher Emanuele Cicchiello, was denied a chance to nominate by order of party bosses.
The issue also produces national reverberations.
Transgender flashpoint
Federally the party’s conservative wing is in the ascendancy against moderates under Peter Dutton’s leadership; the issue of transgender inclusion is a major flashpoint for those on the religious right.
Peta Credlin, a former chief of staff to Tony Abbott, and one of the most influential voices in the Liberal Party, has predicted Mr Pesutto’s leadership will be wounded.
“It baffles me,” Ms Credlin said of the Deeming affair, which she has chronicled regularly in her 6pm time slot on Sky News.
“People in this state deserve a decent opposition – and John Pesutto if you can’t lead one, [then] step down and allow someone else to do it.”
Shadow education minister Senator Sarah Henderson texted Mr Pesutto and lobbied him to change his mind on expelling Ms Deeming from the Liberals.
She broke down in tears in March, she recalled later, after an interjection in the Senate asking another Liberal about the text messages she sent in support of Ms Deeming.
Senator Claire Chandler, of Tasmania, was scheduled to appear at an anti-trans rally with the same main speaker as the one that landed Ms Deeming in strife, but pulled out because of safety concerns.
Senator Chandler has been attacking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Labor for not backing a bill on trans women playing women’s sport.
The party’s hard right in New South Wales is undergoing similar post-election ructions, and anti-trans advocate Katherine Deves recently announced to campaign for a Senate spot in that state but has now withdrawn.
In NSW, there is a major fissure between the right in the Liberals’ parliamentary party, like former premier Dominic Perrottet, and branches beyond it, like former senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and the former Liberal who sued Scott Morrison before the last election, Matthew Camenzuli.
Mr Albanese, meanwhile, won praise from conservatives this week on the issue after being asked: “What is a woman?”
He confidently replied: “An adult human female.”
The question has become charged amid the increasing politicisation of gender.
