Peta Credlin: If Liberal Party elites choose to bail out John Pesutto, they are effectively backing his behaviour towards Moira Deeming
If Liberal Party elites choose to bail out John Pesutto, they are effectively backing his behaviour towards Moira Deeming. Ordinary members will never forgive any party official or MP who supports this madness.
Opinion
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On Sunday, Victorian Liberal leader Brad Battin sat down with his predecessor John Pesutto to offer him a way out of his looming bankruptcy crisis. It can’t have been an easy meeting for Battin, after all, he had challenged Pesutto in December and there is no love lost between them. But Battin knew that unless the Liberal Party could end the bloodletting, there would be no clear air to fight the Allan Labor government. And so he did.
In the meeting, Battin took Pesutto through an offer from Moira Deeming who had been approached by party insiders to put aside her hurt and, in the interests of the Liberal brand, help find a way forward; to give it one last go.
It’s not hard to imagine she might have been tempted to tell them all to get stuffed given she had earlier offered Pesutto a chance to settle for $99,000 pre-trial which he arrogantly rejected. But Deeming has a deep understanding of the party’s rank and file mood. And so, she reluctantly agreed because she was concerned that if she didn’t help, Pesutto’s factional allies in head office were about to spend millions in party funds to bail him out.
This is, in itself, staggering. After all, Pesutto, a lawyer and former shadow attorney-general, was excoriated in the Federal Court judgment that found he defamed his colleague on all five counts as evidence revealed secretly taped meetings, intimidation and bullying.
Yet Deeming knew that party volunteers and donors would be furious to see money meant to be used for campaigning against a disastrous Labor government used in this way. So, she and her lawyers offered Pesutto a way out. She would give him until March 2027 to pay the $2.3m that the court had ordered he pay.
Deeming’s offer had the approval of Battin and Federal MP Dan Tehan (who acts as the Federal Liberal leader’s representative on the party’s Administrative Committee – its governing board for want of a better term). And it included a commitment that she would get the apology from the Party that she has never received, a review of how these disputes might be better handled internally in the future rather than forced through the courts, and that her preselection would be approved in accordance with the Party’s constitution given the threats to turf her out as punishment for taking Pesutto on. Indeed, no less a figure than Jeff Kennett warned that her supporters inside the parliamentary Liberal Party would be “dealt with in due course when pre-selections are called for the next election”; hence her concern that retaliation was coming.
Reading the offer to him, you’ve got to wonder why Pesutto didn’t grab it with two hands given he’s only got until the end of the month to find the $2.3 million he owes. But instead of a gracious agreement, Pesutto countered Deeming’s offer. He said he wanted $1 million wiped off the debt, and so far as it concerned him, the rest was agreed although it would be Battin who would make the apology on behalf of the Liberals. Deeming came back and said she was not willing to give him a $1 million discount that she would have to wear, instead offering a longer three-year term to pay. At this point, on Wednesday morning, Pesutto walked away.
Much noise has been made from people like Kennett about Deeming’s request to have her preselection secured via a decision from the Administrative Committee. But this is hardly without precedent, indeed memories are short: Pesutto’s own Hawthorn preselection was decided by the Administrative Committee. How can this be ‘blackmail’ as Kennett has spitefully suggested when it already had indicative approval from Battin and others? And as for some sort of financial inducement to keep her seat, Deeming has no financial gain here because the money owed her is the result of a court judgment. And anyway, what the heck does he think the Liberals paying millions to Pesutto to avoid a by-election is?
Next Thursday, the first item of business for the Administrative Committee will be to “consider a proposal from the Member for Hawthorn.” And what will be hotly debated is whether to give Pesutto a multi-million dollar loan to cover his legal debts, over a 15 year plus term; which, in all likelihood, will never see the debt repaid. Pesutto has refused to offer up his family home as loan security, instead reports are it will be his superannuation. How ironic it is that on Thursday 31 August 2023, it was Pesutto himself who fronted this very same committee and told them he would not seek a cent of party money in his legal dispute with Deeming. I suggest people go back and review the minutes or the audio recording (yes, I’m told the meeting is taped). President Phil Davis might also recall that he was elected on a platform vowing there would be no party money used by either Deeming or Pesutto.
Victorian Liberals are rightly desperate for this ordeal to be over. They are done with the dirty laundry being washed in public, the personal hatreds and factional squabbles. They want a parliamentary team and head office focused on a campaign to throw Labor out of government and get back Victoria’s self-respect. But as someone who has been involved with the Victorian Liberal Party for over 30 years, I can tell you that members are in a rage about any funds being used to bailout out a man from a mess of his own making, a mess that at every juncture his appalling judgment has made worse.
What Pesutto, Kennett and his coterie do not understand is that Deeming touched a nerve when she stood up for the rights of women and girls to single sex toilets and sport. And in expelling her, they were telling all of us that our views do not matter, that we should suffer in silence, that we are wrong.
The Liberal Party wonders why it has a problem with women. But if this is how one of their own is treated, what don’t they understand? But merely to equate this with rank misogyny misses the rich vein of snobbery that runs through this whole sorry saga. I mean how dare a former schoolteacher from struggle street in western Melbourne stand up to the lawyer-turned-party leader from the leafy suburbs of Hawthorn? And in taking him on, how dare she win?
So, in choosing to bail out Pesutto, if that is what the party elites do on Thursday, they are effectively saying they approve of his behaviour towards her. And that leaves ordinary members in no doubt about where they stand too. As much as they want this over, they will never forgive any party official or MP who supports this madness.
Originally published as Peta Credlin: If Liberal Party elites choose to bail out John Pesutto, they are effectively backing his behaviour towards Moira Deeming
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