Suspended Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming will face a new challenge to expel her from the party as early as next week after she threatened the party’s leader, John Pesutto, with legal action.
Amid warnings from the federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, of an intervention into the Victorian party, seven state Liberal MPs told Guardian Australia they are willing to put forward the motion to expel Deeming.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the MPs said they expect that such a motion will be debated before parliament resumes on 16 May.
“There is no shortage of people who are willing to move and second the motion,” one MP said. “If anything, there is a queue. People are white hot with rage that we are in this position.”
Deeming is currently banned from the Liberal party room, but says she is seeking legal advice to overturn the nine-month suspension, as well as planning a defamation action against Pesutto, after he did not respond to an ultimatum she issued on Thursday.
Some MPs said the move had led to further division within the party and distracted them from focusing on holding the Andrews government to account, ahead of what is expected to be a horror budget.
Under Liberal party rules, five days’ notice must be give before an expulsion motion.
“It will happen sooner rather than later and could be as early as next week,” one Liberal source said.
Two MPs also flagged the possibility of taking action against other Liberals aligned with Deeming. This would probably be in the form of a censure rather than an expulsion.
The Brighton MP, James Newbury, who on Thursday told reporters there were “terrorists” within the party holding it “hostage”, urged the party to “clean house”.
“You cannot be part of the Liberal movement unless your focus is on winning in 2026,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday.
During a series of media interviews on Friday, Dutton flagged the possibility of a federal takeover of the Victorian Liberal branch, saying it was not a “credible alternative government”. This has never occurred in Victoria.
“I wouldn’t rule out federal intervention and I make it very clear to the Victorian division that I want this mess sorted out as quickly as possible,” he told ABC radio.
“My interest is in getting the matters that are in the press at the moment resolved because it doesn’t help our brand. It doesn’t reflect on broader party movements.”
Dutton said the Victorian Liberal party should have been “more competitive” at the last state election, in which the premier, Daniel Andrews, won a third term comfortably.
“They weren’t, and they need to be a credible alternative government,” he said of his state colleagues.
The possibility of a federal takeover has been dismissed by several state MPs, including the party’s deputy leader in the upper house, Matt Bach, though senior Liberals outside parliament have urged it to go ahead.
Tony Barry, a former senior Liberal staffer who is now with political consultancy RedBridge, said the Victorian party’s position has been “over 10 years in the making”.
“Unfortunately there are no signs that the Victorian division has yet bottomed out and all signs are that there’s a small cohort of state MPs that are more focused on internal elections than external elections,” he said.
Deeming on Thursday issued Pesutto with a 2pm deadline to declare she was not a Nazi sympathiser, after she was suspended for her attendance in an anti-transgender rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis in March.
According to Deeming, she was told if she accepted the suspension, Pesutto would issue a joint media statement with her, making it clear she had not been accused of being a Nazi or sympathiser.
The party’s deputy leader in the upper house, Matt Bach said there was no such agreement struck.
Pesutto, meanwhile, urged his party to “get together and unify”.
He refused to say whether he would back a new expulsion motion and said any federal intervention was an “organisational matter”.
