Moira Deeming vindicated, John Pesutto loses

A great victory for a great champion

A Melbourne Federal Court judge has ruled in favour of expelled Liberal Party member Moira Deeming. Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto was found guilty of having defamed Deeming, having smeared her as a neo-Nazi.

John Pesutto has been ordered to pay Deeming $300,000 in damages. This matter is not fully closed however, as further developments are expected, including a possible appeal, and commentary from both camps.

Sky News offers this report of the events:

Ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming has won her high-stakes legal battle against John Pesutto as the judgment in their defamation stoush was handed down on Thursday. Justice David O’Callaghan found Ms Pesutto defamed the expelled Liberal MP in comments he made in the days after a Let Women Speak rally Ms Deeming attended on March 18 2023, which was gate-crashed by neo-Nazis. 

 

The judge awarded Ms Deeming $300,000 in damages as he delivered his decision in Melbourne’s Federal Court at 10.15am. Ms Deeming, represented by top defamation silk Sue Chrysanthou SC, argued she was defamed by Mr Pesutto in a media statement and two interviews following the women’s rights rally.

 

She claimed she was portrayed by the Victorian Opposition Leader as being a neo-Nazi sympathiser and tied to far-right groups – allegations Mr Pesutto denied. Mr Pesutto’s defences of public interest, honest opinion and qualified privilege failed, while the judge dismissed the Liberal leader’s contextual truth defence.

 

“I have also found that Mrs Deeming has established that the publication of each of the five impune publications has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to her reputation,” Justice O’Callaghan said. Ms Deeming was ultimately expelled from the Victorian Liberal partyroom in May 2023 about two months following the rally and after she threated defamation action against Mr Pesutto. 

 

In documents released by the federal court, lawyers on behalf of Mr Pesutto argued he never suggested Ms Deeming “is a Nazi or has Nazi associations or is a Nazi sympathiser”. The Victorian Opposition Leader claimed the expelled Liberal MP caused “damage to her own reputation by putting into the public domain false assertions”. 

 

The judgment in the case comes days after it was revealed Mr Pesutto paid $50,000 to cover legal bills of women’s rights activists Angela Jones and Kellie-Jay Keen, who also sued him over comments he made in the wake of the Let Women Speak rally. Ms Keen and Ms Jones’ matters were settled in May after the two women signed deeds of settlement.

This has been dragging on for over twenty months now. While the Labor government under Jacinta Allan of the socialist left faction has been continuing to destroy this state, just as Dan Andrews had done before her, Pesutto has been a lame duck, not laying a glove on Labor.

Labor should have been ousted years ago, but one weak and useless Opposition leader after another has meant Labor has been sitting pretty. And when so-called Liberals boot out people like Deeming, and before her, Bernie Finn, what is the point of having an opposition? They have been completely useless.

Some earlier reports are worth drawing upon. Back in October another former Vic Lib Tim Smith said a “handful of elites” have been running the Liberal Party here. Also in October the head of Binary, Kirralie Smith, said this in part:

Listening to Victorian Liberal party leaders John Pesutto, Georgie Crozier, Matt Bach and David Southwick, it became painfully clear why the Victorian Liberals are in opposition despite all the failures of Labor in that state. They presented as far more concerned with factions and attacking their own than actually representing the people who elected them.

 

They contradicted themselves, with a secret recording exposing their incorrect affidavits before the court. The disdain for Moira and women’s sex-based rights was painfully evident in their tone of voice. The secret recordings sounded like adults scolding children or bullies in the playground. 

 

Their reluctance to answer questions in a straightforward way even annoyed the judge at times. This case must serve as a major wake-up call for all politicians. It is time they listen to the people and stop being so concerned with their opposition and what the media is reporting.

 

They need to take control of the narrative and serve the people. The people of Victoria and Australia are fed up with the games, the deception and the distractions. They need to get on and govern. Families are concerned about government overreach, allowing school staff and others to transition their children without consent…. 

Lyle Shelton has also recently mentioned this ongoing saga:

The Sky News host and former Liberal staffer’s critique is damning. In her column in The Australian this week, Credlin decries the Liberal Party’s treatment of expelled Victorian Upper House MLA Moira Deeming, painting a grim picture of a party betraying its conservative roots.

 

Credlin, a long-standing Liberal and former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, highlights the gutless actions of Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto, accusing him of sacrificing a strong conservative woman for his own political survival.

 

Deeming’s real “crime,” according to Credlin, was not her attendance at a rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis, but the fact that she was a conservative with courage. Pesutto’s decision to expel Deeming from the party was never about the rally, but rather about purging the parliamentary party of a strong conservative voice.

 

Pesutto, fearing backlash in his own teal-leaning electorate, opted to smear Deeming as a neo-Nazi sympathiser. Credlin underscores that Pesutto’s failure to support Deeming was a classic case of gutlessness—allowing his political opponents to dictate his actions.

 

Instead of defending Deeming’s right to free speech and supporting her stance on biological males invading women’s spaces, Pesutto threw her under the bus. In court, Pesutto even admitted Deeming was not a neo-Nazi or sympathiser, but still, he forced her out for standing up for women’s rights.

As mentioned, the case is likely not at an end, and the fallout will continue for quite some time, with even a push to find a new Liberal leader for Victoria. The bottom line however, is that the only thing worse than the last decade of diabolical and disgusting Labor rule in Victoria has been the decrepit duds in the Liberal Party pretending to be Opposition Leaders. Michael O’Brien, Matthew Guy and John Pesutto have been absolute dead losses. As long as folks like that are at the helm, Labor could be in power for a very long time to come.

In the meantime, well done Moira Deeming for a well-deserved win. Here is her statement following the win:

I am grateful to God for this outcome, to the Court for its careful and prompt consideration of my case and to my lawyers whose dedication, expertise and integrity is unmatched.

 

The Judge found that I was defamed in five separate publications and that each of those also caused serious harm to my reputation. Every single one of Mr Pesutto’s defences, failed.

 

This judgment is a public acknowledgment that there was never any justification- legal, moral or political – for what the Opposition Leader did to me and to my family.

 

The organisers and attendees of the 2023 Melbourne “Let Women Speak” Rally did nothing wrong and it is shameful that they were treated without fairness or respect by so many in public office.

 

I will continue to fight for the rights of parents, women and children – and I know I won’t be alone.

 

I am pleased with this result and relieved to have been vindicated. It has been an incredibly tough 22 months for me and my family but I can now start to move forward with the judgment today clearing my name.

 

Thank you to everyone who stood by me and defended me despite personal and political differences and regardless of the cost – friends, strangers, opponents, Liberal members and colleagues. Thanks to everyone who prayed, wrote, donated and told the truth. And finally, thank you to my family, especially my husband.

Bill Muehlenberg teaches ethics, apologetics and theology at several Melbourne Bible Colleges. His independent blog, Culture Watch, has over 5,000 articles commenting on the major cultural, social and political issues of the day.