The only remaining mystery is why the Liberal leadership wanted to slot Moira Deeming

Was booting Moira Deeming from the Liberal Party something John Pesutto and his gang had always wanted? Or were they in a full-on meltdown because they were copping it on Twitter?

Day nine of Deeming versus Pesutto saw the opposition leader spend his third day in the witness box with more to come when court resumes on Monday.

By now the contours of the events in question are so familiar – the footage of Let Women Speak rally, the build up to the rally, the ‘champagne’ video, the March 19 meeting, the party room meeting – that it can sometimes feel like the case is going round in circles.

It can also feel as though we are watching two trials – one a Federal Court defamation case which is playing out in Court 6K in front Justice David O’Callaghan – the other a political trial of the leadership and political skills of John Pesutto.

From the outset there has always been a good chance that Pesutto could triumph at law and lose the politics.

John Pesutto could triumph at law and lose the politics. Picture: Aaron Francis

What Deeming wants is less clear.

Obviously on one level she wants a vindication from the judge that Pesutto defamed her when he ended her career as a Liberal MP.

But even if Justice O’Callaghan finds she was indeed defamed, he can’t turn back the clock for her.

Too much water has flowed under the bridge to think she can ever sit in the Liberal Party room again.

But even in the extremely unlikely event that this Humpty Dumpty could be put back together again it is impossible to imagine the Liberal Party will re-endorse her.

Listening to Deeming’s counsel Sue Chrysanthou it is hard to not think the point of this case is not to achieve her client’s vindication but to grind Pesutto into the dirt.

Moira Deeming and her barrister Sue Chrysanthou. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

And so the case drags on into its third week – threatening to go on into a fourth – with no clear winner but Jacinta Allan and the Australian Labor Party.

Mid-morning on Thursday saw Sue Chrysanthou probing Pesutto about the meeting between the leadership group and Deeming the day after the Let Women Speak rally.

Or more correctly he probed her about the discrepancies between the transcript of the recording of that meeting – (c) D.Southwick and his affidavits.

By this point in the trial it is clear for historians what exactly happened.

As the transcript makes plain, any efforts to find a solution to the problem that afternoon that did not involve Deeming leaving the parliamentary Liberal Party were explored but only in a perfunctory manner.

In other words they were there to slot her and slot her they did.

After listening to this for nine days it’s clear the only remaining mystery is why.

Was this something Pesutto and his gang had always wanted to do and they felt the Nazis-on-the-steps-of-parliament thing gave them the chance?

Or were they in a full-on meltdown because they were copping it on Twitter?

If it’s the former, it’s nasty, but hey, that’s politics.

And as it has turned out for them extremely badly executed politics.

If it’s the latter – that they were scared into moving at breakneck speed because they were getting a few nasty @s on the Twitter-machine – then that’s much worse.

Pesutto the Machiavel or Pesutto the pants-shitter?

A question for the historians to ponder.

Meanwhile back to the trial and for whatever reason under questioning from Chrysanthou, Pesutto stuck doggedly to his line that he had come prepared to listen.

Chrysanthou put it to him that Deeming had been prepared to basically say whatever they wanted her to say in relation to the Nazis, which the transcript makes pretty clear she did: “Anyway, look, I’m happy to condemn everything – I’m not arguing – like, I’m not defending them. Happy to condemn them. Happy to do that; eager to do that, that’s fine.”

Pesutto tried to argue this didn’t apply to the rally’s organisers Kellie-Jay Keen and Angie Jones, saying it was his “clear impression … Mrs Deeming was not prepared to call out the conduct referable” to the pair.

In fact the transcript makes it clear that this wasn’t really explored and Deeming did offer to distance herself from some of their statements if not the women themselves.

Pesutto was reduced to saying “I can only say that my understanding of Mrs Deeming’s words is that she was not prepared” to do that.

He admitted he had formed this impression in part on her “demeanour”.

He was not, he said, convinced she understood the gravity of the situation.

Though they had heard her words they weren’t convinced that she would do what was necessary.

“There was some words around general denunciation … but I formed the view that Mrs Deeming would not do what was expected of her,” he said.

As was to be expected Chrysanthou accused him of later misrepresenting this meeting to his colleagues and the public.

His problem – I should say one of his problems – is that even if he can convince the judge that this is so, it may not be enough to convince his colleagues.