By Rachel Eddie
Ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming paid some upfront costs for the Let Women Speak rally held on the steps of the Victorian parliament, she told the Federal Court during cross-examination in her high-stakes defamation trial against Opposition Leader John Pesutto.
Deeming told the court she had offered to organise the location and public liability insurance for the event with UK anti-trans rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull and that she had paid for security and sound systems.
Moira Deeming (right) with barrister Sue Chrysanthou, SC, outside the Federal Court on Tuesday.Credit: Justin McManus
Earlier on Tuesday, the court was played a 70-minute secret recording of a meeting in which Pesutto gave Deeming the option of resigning from the Liberals’ parliamentary team to avoid being expelled in a party room showdown over her attendance at the rally, which was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
The meeting on March 19, 2023 – the day after the rally – was attended by Deeming and the Liberal leadership team of Pesutto, deputy leader David Southwick, upper house leader Georgie Crozier and her then-deputy Matt Bach. Pesutto’s then-chief of staff, Rodrigo Pintos-Lopez, was also there.
In the hours after the rally, Deeming celebrated its success with main organiser Keen-Minshull, Melbourne woman Angela Jones and Katherine Deves, a former Liberal candidate for the federal Sydney seat of Warringah.
In the recording of the meeting between the Liberal leaders and Deeming, Crozier told the MP she was furious that the rally had derailed the party’s attempts to be an effective opposition.
John Pesutto and his wife Betty arrive at the Federal Court on Tuesday.Credit: AAP
“The work we have done, the time we have put in to get the worst government in the state’s history on the ropes,” Crozier said.
Pesutto told Deeming that Labor was going to “clobber” him and had been “gunning” for him over the rally given his desire to win the 2026 election.
“[The government has] been itching for something to clobber me with and this is it, it’s coming,” Pesutto said in the clandestine recording.
“We could find [then-premier] Daniel Andrews robbing a 7-Eleven, but if you bring Katherine Deves down [from Sydney], everyone’s going to go, ‘Don’t care about that, Katherine Deves is in town’. That’s all it’s going to be about.”
In 2022, Deves apologised after she compared her anti-trans activism to resistance against the Nazis and claimed in a tweet that “half of all males with trans identities are sex offenders”.
Pesutto told Deeming in the meeting that the public would now think the Liberal Party turned the other cheek to Nazism because of the rally.
“Nazism is like the most toxic acid that can run through any political party, and it’s running through us,” he said.
Deeming’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, told the court the audio recording showed her client was “ambushed” in the meeting despite her willingness to address the problem, but that Pesutto never intended to give her the chance.
Chrysanthou said the leadership team had been “changing the goal posts” by stating Deeming was summoned to the meeting because of the neo-Nazis, but repeatedly raised her views about trans and gender diverse people.
In the meeting, Pesutto said he was open to options but that Deeming would have to “disown” the other women and that she might be better off as an independent MP “to give you that complete freedom”.
He finished the meeting by saying he could see no path but to seek Deeming’s expulsion, but offered her the option to resign instead.
“I’m very sorry it’s come to this, but I just don’t feel I have a choice,” Pesutto said.
Deeming addresses the Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne in March last year.Credit: Youtube
Deeming could be heard on the recording repeatedly condemning Nazism. Pesutto and the leadership team also acknowledged this repeatedly.
“Very obviously, I’m not a Nazi,” Deeming said. “If you want to fix it, I’m open to suggestions.”
Deeming also said she would condemn any suggestions that LGBTQ people were comparable to paedophiles, but questioned whether the people she associated with had actually made such comparisons.
However, Bach said in the meeting that there was no way back, while Southwick said Deeming’s views were not mainstream.
On Tuesday, Deeming accepted that she held controversial views about trans and gender diverse people, but she denied she harboured “extremist” views.
During cross-examination, Deeming was also shown a February 2023 news article in which Pesutto defended her, but she told the court the party leader had still failed to correct the extremist characterisation of her in the media. Deeming had also been hauled into a meeting at that time.
On Monday, the court heard Pesutto had exchanged text messages with colleagues in the hours after the rally indicating he was already considering expelling her from the parliamentary Liberal Party.
Deeming was instead suspended for nine months in a last-minute compromise deal, but was ultimately expelled in May last year after threatening to bring in lawyers.
Deeming and Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull at the Let Women Speak rally in March 2023.Credit: Twitter
Deeming alleges Pesutto defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser, which Pesutto rejects.
Chrysanthou on Monday told the court the neo-Nazis at the rally were an entirely separate group.
Deeming said in evidence she had no idea the men in black outside parliament were neo-Nazis until they were escorted away by police.
She agreed that she had helped organise the rally, by paying some upfront costs for security and sound systems, and said she might have been reimbursed for some costs.
Neo-Nazis square off against police at the rally.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Deeming stood by a 2016 claim that the authors of the safe schools program were “paedophile apologists”. The safe schools program provides resources to teachers to support LGBTQ students and to keep students safe from bullying.
Pesutto previously settled separate defamation action launched against him by Keen-Minshull and Jones.
Deeming’s cross-examination will continue on Wednesday.
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