James Campbell: John Pesutto alone is responsible for being booted as Liberal leader

Only four months after claiming the Liberal Party leadership prize, John Pesutto set off a series of events that ended with him being booted from the job — and there’s no escaping that he alone is responsible for it.

It is hard not to feel sorry for John Pesutto.

Ejected from parliament in 2018 he spent the next four years working his arse off to get back into Spring St.

It should have made him a Liberal hero.

Especially after his colleagues immediately rewarded his effort by making him their leader.

It was an incredible comeback for a man who fifteen years earlier came within a few votes of being the MP for Kooyong instead of Josh Frydenberg.

Pesutto set in train a series of events that resulted in him being booted from the job. Picture: David Crosling

But only four months after claiming the prize, Pesutto set in train a series of events that on Friday resulted in him being booted from the job, with a good chance of being ejected from parliament again if he cannot raise millions in donations to pay Moira Deeming’s lawyers.

Sadly as pitiable as Pesutto’s predicament may be, there is no escaping that he alone is responsible for it.

Nor is there any escaping that history will record the legacy of Pesutto the moderate will be the final take-over of the state parliamentary party by conservatives who share the views of the overwhelming majority of the Liberal Party’s members.

This has always been the mystery at the heart of Pesutto’s actions in seeking to expel Moira Deeming from the parliamentary party — how did he so badly misjudge the strength of his position?

What possessed John Pesutto to fight Moira Deeming to the bitter end in the Federal Court. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

If Pesutto had had the overwhelming support of his party room and led a faction which shares the majority of the social views of the wider Liberal Party, he would have been in a strong position to kick Deeming out.

But he didn’t, which is why it’s clear he just didn’t have the juice.

And not just with hindsight either, there was no shortage of senior Liberals who couldn’t believe his recklessness.

If he wanted to get Deeming, he needed patience.

His only chance of pulling it off – given his precarious position – was if the charge Deeming had been consorting with Nazis had been made to stick.

But even before that narrative began to unravel – as it did almost immediately – there was widespread suspicion across the party that the Let Women Speak rally was just an excuse to expel her.

The moment it became clear this would be seen as a fight about the transsexuals, it was obvious whose side the party would be on.

Indeed it was so obvious that at no point in the past two years – even after she had been expelled from the parliamentary party, even after she sued its leader – did anyone even attempt to expel Deeming from the Liberal Party itself.

For this reason, too, there was never any chance the Liberal Party’s Admin Committee would agree to cover Pesutto’s legal bills, which is why he knew better than to ask.

What possessed him in these circumstances to fight Deeming to the bitter end in the Federal Court, or why having lost he didn’t apologise afterwards and immediately move to reinstate her, is equally mysterious.

Had he been prepared to swallow his pride, he might – might – have survived.

Originally published as James Campbell: John Pesutto alone is responsible for being booted as Liberal leader