‘I have never seen Moira so angry,’ Andrew Deeming wrote in his Federal Court affidavit
Ousted Liberal Moira Deeming suffered nightmares about being attacked and became fearful people would believe she and her family were Nazis, her husband Andrew Deeming says.
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The husband of ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming says his wife now “lives in fear” after she claims Opposition Leader John Pesutto painted her as a Nazi sympathiser.
In a Federal Court affidavit, Andrew Deeming detailed how his wife suffered nightmares about being attacked, and became fearful people would believe she and her family were Nazis following the March 2023 Let Women Speak rally was gatecrashed by white supremacists.
The day after the rally, and after she was called to a high powered meeting of the Liberal leadership, Mr Pesutto issued a media release moving to expel Mrs Deeming from the party for “associating with people whose views are abhorrent to my values”.
Her husband said his wife felt she “had been tricked and lied to” by Mr Pesutto.
“I have never seen Moira so angry,” Mr Deeming said in documents uploaded to the Federal Court online file on Wednesday evening.
“She told me she thought that Mr Pesutto was banking on the Liberal Party Parliamentary team ethos of not wanting to ‘contradict the leader’ as a way of getting his way.”
He said she believed “this would be handled internally” and that she kept repeating the words, “I can’t believe he did this”.
Mr Deeming said when the media release was issued, his wife “started panicking about how everyone would think she and our family were Nazis”.
“She appeared extremely anxious and distressed that night,” he said.
“She was repeating to herself over and over again that she was worried people would think she was a Nazi.”
Mr Deeming said between the leadership meeting the day after the rally, on March 19, 2023, and the day she was suspended from the Liberal Party on March 27, his wife “started having nightmares about being attacked by people who thought she was a Nazi”.
“Moira withdrew into herself,” he said.
“She was intensely anxious. She stopped eating and I had to remind her to eat. She lost track of time and was visibly shaken and exhausted at the idea of going out in public.”
He stated she “felt powerless against all these powerful people”.
“She told me she was upset that she was being portrayed not just as a Nazi but also as a ‘troublemaker’ within the Liberal Party for even attempting to defend herself,” he said in court documents.
Political advocate Warren Mundine told the court of a conversation he had with Mrs Deeming where she said “that her young children were saying “my mum’s a Nazi’”.
“She told me that, even though they did not understand what this meant, she was distraught that her children were saying this,” Mr Mundine stated in an affidavit.
Mrs Deeming is suing Mr Pesutto for defamation after he “tarred her with the Nazi brush”.
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Deeming shocked by Nazi salute footage
Ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming returned to the witness box on Wednesday for day three of her popcorn-worthy defamation hearing against Opposition Leader John Pesutto.
Mrs Deeming was grilled by Mr Pesutto’s barrister Dr Matt Collins AM KC.
Justice David O’Callaghan opened the hearing by refusing Mrs Deeming’s application to subpoena David Southwick MP for any other communications or recordings.
The application came after he recorded a secret tape of a Liberal leadership meeting on March 19, 2023 over Mrs Deeming’s attendance at the ‘Let Women Speak’ rally — held the day before — that was gatecrashed by Nazis.
On Wednesday afternoon Mrs Deeming was shown footage of a line of thugs performing a Nazi salute on the steps of parliament during the rally and quizzed over her knowledge of the far-right group Proud Boys.
The court has been adjourned for the day, with Mrs Deeming to return to the stand to continue her cross examination on Thursday.
‘Never seen anything like that with adults’: Deeming shocked at blow-ups
Mrs Deeming said she tried to avoid being “that kind of member that would be divisive” after she was “shocked” by an earlier blow up in the party about duck hunting.
She said she “had known always” the Let Women Speak rally on March 18 2023 that she helped organise “was likely to be controversial”.
The exiled Liberal, who conceded she had contentious views about trans and gender issues, claimed she sought to be open about her views after seeing an explosion in the party after James Newbury MP spoke out about duck hunting.
Mrs Deeming told the court she was “shocked by an incident” on her first day of being an MP after Mr Newbury spoke on the radio about a policy that “looked like it was about to break up the Coalition”.
“I’d never seen anything like that with adults and I was very worried about the team and I asked Mr Pesutto to help me advocate on this particular issue without creating what I had just seen,” she said.
She said Mr Newbury had “strong views not shared by the rest of the team” about duck hunting and went on radio and gave “the impression we would be supportive of duck hunting”.
“It looked like it was about to break up the Coalition,” she said of a party room meeting after his on-air comments.
“Everyone sort of started yelling about breaking up the Coalition, actually Mr Pesutto did an excellent job mediating … that was day one of my being an MP … I didn’t want to ever accidentally do that.”
She said “everyone was very angry” and she approached Mr Pesutto who was “very warm” and told her “it shows me you won’t be that kind of person” because she was forthcoming.
Mrs Deeming said she “knew that it was important to do things well”, and intended to meet Mr Pesutto to seek advice about the rally she helped organise.
The meeting never occurred.
She “didn’t consider (the rally) to be toxic in any way, controversial was acceptable”.
“I just considered I had consulted with my leader and he knew what I was doing and I got on with doing it.”
Deeming requested extra security before rally
Mrs Deeming said she knew there were threats from counter protesters to the Let Women Speak rally due to its anti-trans ideologies and “knew it was going to be controversial”, but that “made me more determined to be brave and to go”.
She had become aware via organiser Angela Jones that threats had been received and had notified parliamentary security services about “personal and group threats”.
“I need security to be onsite to let me back into parliament in an emergency, and some extra guards if possible,” she emailed parliamentary security four days before the rally.
But Mrs Deeming was told security didn’t provide personal protection for MPs, emails shown to the court revealed.
Mr Pesutto’s barrister Dr Collins asked whether she acknowledged the “rally had the potential to become violent”.
“Women were afraid of violence by the counter protesters, I don’t think that they invited that or were to blame for that … because they were speaking about their rights on parliament steps,” she said.
Dr Collins asked whether it made her “consider your wisdom” of being involved as an organiser and speaker of the rally.
“Knowing there were threats from the counter protesters … (it) made me more determined to be brave and to go,” she replied.
Asked about a rally promotional tweet she re-posted that stated, “Self ID is a danger to women and children, it allows males in all women’s spaces”, Mrs Deeming said that was “one of the reasons I like this movement”.
“It refers to self ID … it’s talking about the laws, so self ID is shorthand for laws being changed in almost cookie cutter fashion,” she said.
Mrs Deeming claimed those changes gave the ability to “self identify as either sex or none” giving biological men access to “intimate” women’s spaces.
Deeming lack of rally research ‘incredibly reckless’: Defence
Mrs Deeming has been accused of being “incredibly reckless” for helping organise the Let Women Speak rally after failing to follow media reporting on similar events across Australia in the days prior.
At a rally in Perth, Dr Collins asked if she was aware counter protesters attended and chanted, “Posie Parker you can’t hide, you’ve got Nazis on your side.”
Posie Parker is another name for rally organiser and British anti-transgender rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen.
Dr Collins said it was a “standard catchphrase of counterprotest” that “occurred routinely at Let Women Speak rallies”.
Mrs Deeming denied being aware, stating she hadn’t followed media reporting before the event.
Dr Collins asked whether she considered it “incredibly reckless” to present as a speaker and organiser of the rally without having investigated what occurred at similar rallies in the days prior.
“No,” she replied.
Mrs Deeming said she was aware organiser Kellie-Jay Keen “was controversial” and that she “didn’t agree with her position on total free speech” because “that was how anti-Semitism in Germany had been able to build”.
“The most provocative thing I thought she was known for saying were things like, ‘trans is not a thing’,” she said.
Deeming’s memories of rally ‘disjointed’
The ousted Liberal said she can’t remember if anyone at the rally told her there were Nazis in attendance.
Mrs Deeming said she doesn’t have a good recollection on what happened at the Let Women Speak rally because she was “frightened” and “it was extremely stressful”.
“My memories are disjointed … believe it or not I don’t like to go to rallies … I was nervous what was going to happen … who was going to get hurt … i just found it stressful.”
Dr Collins asked if it was Mrs Deeming’s evidence to the court that no-one told her there were Nazis there.
“My memory is very bad … I have no recollection of anyone … I just don’t remember the actual rally that well.”
Video of the event recorded and live streamed by organiser and British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen was played to the court depicting Mrs Keen on the steps of parliament at a microphone in front of a Let Women Speak sign.
Mrs Keen told the crowd she was going to “wave at all the boys who came today … I think it might make them annoyed”.
Dr Collins asked if Mrs Deeming agreed Mrs Keen was being “deliberately provocative and trying to stir up” transgender counter protesters who had attended.
“The very first thing she tried to do at the rally was stir up division between the Let Women Speak rally and the counter protesters that turned up?” he asked.
“No,” Mrs Deeming replied.
Mrs Keen was heard asking the crowd to shout out the acronym TERF – meaning trans-exclusionary radical feminist – as she sung a song at the rally.
“Oh what a day this has been, what a rabble I’m in, well it’s almost like being a TERF,” Mrs Keen sung.
“I’m bewildered,” Justice O’Callaghan interjected.
“I haven’t heard the acronym TERF before … if it’s significant I don’t understand the context.”
Dr Collins said it was an important point.
The video of the rally with Mrs Keen continued.
“No man has a vagina, no woman has a penis, there is no such thing as non binary and transitioning children is profound abuse,” she shouted to rounds of applause by the crowd.
‘Destroy freaks’: Shooking footage shows Nazi salutes
Shocking footage has been shown to the court of a line of neo-Nazis repeatedly throwing up Nazi salutes on the steps of parliament.
Vision played to the Federal Court, taken during the ‘Let Women Speak’ rally that Mrs Deeming helped organise on March 18, 2023, showed the group of neo-Nazis wearing black and unfurling a banner that said “destroy paedo freaks”.
In front of the white supremacists, a man with a microphone screamed out, “these communists, pedophiles and trannies have infiltrated every single institution of this country across the west”.
“They are coming for your children,” he shouted, as a long line of neo-Nazis standing behind him repeatedly threw up Nazi salutes.
Mrs Deeming said “I’ve never seen that footage … I don’t know why the police couldn’t have arrested them.”
“I hadn’t seen that before, that (footage) just proves they weren’t with us.”
Across the road, on the other side of Spring St, the footage showed hundreds of counter protesters held back by a long line of police.
A man in the crowd of counter protesters said to the person behind the camera, “Nazis and you guys are all one package here today”.
‘I don’t know what the Proud Boys are’
Mrs Deeming has denied having any knowledge of far-right militant neo-fascist group ‘Proud Boys’ as she was shown public messages raising concerns about her attendance at a rally gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
Days before the Let Women Speak rally, Twitter users criticised her promotion of the event that British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen would be speaking at.
“Members of parliament probably shouldn’t go to Nazi rallies tbh (to be honest),” one X user wrote to Mrs Deeming on March 17 in a message shown to the court.
“Why do you cozy up to fascists, Moira?” another wrote to the MP.
“An elected member of state parliament happy to associate with brownshirts on their days off is a bad look Moira!” said another on March 14.
Mrs Deeming said she couldn’t recall seeing the messages, and dismissed them as “anonymous Twitter users”.
Mr Pesutto’s barrister Dr Collins showed Mrs Deeming another tweet from someone who labelled themselves as a “Proud Boy” and linked images of a 2022 Miami protest featuring organiser Mrs Keen standing next to a member of the Proud Boys.
“I don’t know what the Proud Boys are and I don’t know this man’s name,” Mrs Deeming said about the tweet.
Dr Collins asked if she understood the Proud Boys to be a far right militant extremist group.
“I don’t know what they are,” she said.
Mrs Deeming’s barrister objected to her client being shown “300 tweets” and being asked if she remembered each of them.
“It’s a waste of everyone’s time,” barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC said.
Neo-Nazi leader boasted of ‘protecting’ rally
Neo-Nazi leader and convicted criminal Thomas Sewell publicly claimed to have “protected” the Let Women Speak rally, a court has heard.
The head of the National Socialist Network led a group of 20 white supremacists who performed shocking Nazi salutes on the steps of parliament during the pro-women’s rally.
The Nazis were filmed standing on the road on Spring St between the steps of parliament, where the rally was held, and a large group of counter protesters on the other side who supported transgender rights.
“They came running armed with flag poles, only to stop dead in their tracks once they realised 20 proud white men protecting the rally weren’t backing down,” Sewell said in tweets shown to the Federal Court.
In another tweet, the neo-Nazi said his group was “holding the line against 300+ communists”.
“Today in Melbourne the National Socialist Network acted as a vanguard for a protest against the constant paedophilic agenda being forced upon our children and our people,” Sewell wrote.
Mrs Deeming said “I totally reject that”, that the Nazi group acted as a support for the rally.
A tweet from then-Premier Dan Andrews the day after the rally was also shown to the court.
“I won’t share a photo because they simply don’t deserve the attention,” Mr Andrews wrote.
“But yesterday, anti-trans activists gathered to spread hate.
“And on the steps of Parliament, some of them performed a Nazi salute.
“I wish it didn’t have to be said, but clearly it does: Nazis aren’t welcome. Not on Parliament’s steps. Not anywhere.”
Devastated relatives to sue over Daylesford pub crash ruling
Charges have been dismissed against a diabetic driver who killed five people when he ploughed into a Daylesford beer garden. The victims’ grieving relatives have hit out at the decision saying “there is zero justice”.
Deeming: I was in a fight to the death with Pesutto
In an extraordinary affidavit, Moira Deeming says she believed John Pesutto and David Southwick “set out to damage and utterly destroy me” after a controversial women’s rally.