Moira Deeming says she is mounting a legal challenge against her nine-month suspension from the Liberal party after issuing a failed ultimatum to leader, John Pesutto, to declare that she is not a Nazi sympathiser.
Deeming was suspended for nine months from the Liberals during a party room meeting on 27 March, after she earlier attended an anti-transgender demonstration that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
Pesutto had initially sought to expel her from the party but later said he had proposed a suspension after receiving “important concessions” from Deeming, including condemnation of comments made by the rally’s headline speaker and organiser.
According to sources close to Deeming, as part of the compromise, Pesutto had indicated he would issue a joint media statement with her, making it clear she had not been accused of being a Nazi or sympathiser.
A statement was issued by his office on the evening after the party room meeting but it was only attributed to Deeming.
In an email sent to Pesutto on Thursday morning, Deeming made it clear she did not believe the opposition leader had kept to the alleged agreement.
Deeming wrote she had only agreed to the compromise to get her family’s name “cleared” and said they had been “suffering unjustly” as a result.
Deeming said if a statement was not issued by the 2pm deadline she will consider that the leadership have “failed to honour the suspension agreement and I will be forced to challenge it officially, demand re-entry to the party room and instruct my lawyers to commence legal proceedings”.
Pesutto did not meet Deeming’s deadline.
In a subsequent email to Liberal MPs, Deeming said she would be challenging the suspension, given the terms “have never been honoured” and the minutes of the meeting “failed to be endorsed”.
“Given that the leadership did not make the statement of exoneration, or confirm my return [to the party], and that no mediation or even any minutes exist to settle this dispute, I have advised my lawyers to prepare a legal challenge over my suspension,” she wrote.
“I believe that we need to come together as colleagues and have a do-over meeting. If my suspension is re-confirmed, we can make sure that the conditions are explicitly agreed upon.”
Asked about the possibility of legal action, Pesutto told reporters on Thursday he was not concerned.
“If Moira Deeming is going to take action to sue me – and effectively sue the parliamentary Liberal party and the Liberal party – I think that would be a matter for her to consider,” he said.
“She’s free to do what she wants.”
Pesutto was also forced to deny he was a bully, after allegations were made he had brought Renee Heath, an upper house MP, to tears during another party room meeting on Tuesday.
Guardian Australia has heard conflicting accounts of Tuesday’s meeting, with the disagreement centred upon the minutes of the 27 March meeting when Deeming was suspended.
Heath, an ally of Deeming, is the party room secretary and responsible for taking minutes during meetings.
Pesutto told reporters Heath provided three “very different versions” of the minutes from March. He said, because of this, he moved a motion to reject them.
“They could not be reconciled and the party room overwhelming agreed that they were not in shape for acceptance,” he said.
Heath is said to have left the meeting in tears and later wrote to her colleagues saying she felt “so shaken” by the way she was allegedly treated.
She said she felt “completely stitched up and misrepresented” by the party leadership, “with no ability to defend myself”.
“I wasn’t even given the space to correct the mistruths about me in today’s meeting,” she said in the email, first aired on Peta Credlin’s Sky News program but later seen by Guardian Australia.
“I am upset. Very upset. The way I have been treated and the way other conservative women in this party are treated is nothing short of bullying.”
Pesutto said there was no bullying culture in the Liberal party.
“I’m leading with a collaborative, inclusive and professional style,” he said.
