By Rachel Eddie and Annika Smethurst
Former MP Matt Bach was warned on his first day in parliament that conversations in the Liberal Party were often “surreptitiously” recorded, he told the Federal Court on Tuesday.
It comes as Liberal leader John Pesutto moved to reassure Victorians that his position was safe despite the defamation trial against him.
During a day-long cross-examination, Bach was questioned by ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, about a 70-minute secretly recorded meeting between her client and the party leadership. The tape – made by deputy Liberal leader David Southwick – has been a central piece of evidence since it emerged early in the trial.
Former Liberal MP Matt Bach arriving at the Federal Court on Tuesday.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Bach said the recording of the meeting showed Deeming had been treated with “kid gloves” and was not harassed, as Chrysanthou suggested.
“I would have more robust conversations than this with 11-year-olds most weeks, counsel,” said Bach, who is a teacher and deputy principal in the UK.
He said he was surprised, but not stunned, to learn that Southwick had secretly recorded the meeting and didn’t tell his leader until months later.
Bach told the court that after he entered parliament in 2020, he met former premier Ted Baillieu – whose own political career ended in 2013 amid a secret tapes scandal – who warned him that internal conversations were often secretly recorded.
Bach said Baillieu impressed upon him that “in the Liberal Party, many things are taped”.
“I’m never that surprised that meetings in the Liberal Party may have been taped,” Bach told the court on the 11th day of the trial.
During the meeting, Pesutto could be heard giving Deeming the option of resigning from the parliamentary Liberal Party to avoid being expelled.
Deeming had helped organise the Let Women Speak rally on the steps of the Victorian parliament a day earlier. Neo-Nazis were among several groups of protesters who arrived that day.
Opposition Leader John Pesutto arrives for day 11 of the Federal Court case on Tuesday.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Deeming has denounced Nazism and alleges Pesutto defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser, which he rejects.
Bach, who was deputy leader of the upper house before moving to the UK last year, flew into Melbourne on Tuesday and – after hours of cross-examination – was flying out late the same day. Southwick will be cross-examined on Wednesday.
Pesutto – who last week endured four days of cross-examination himself – on Tuesday told media that he had not heard concerns from any members of his team, amid speculation some of his once-loyal colleagues had shifted their support.
“I have strong support in the party room. There’s no issue here,” he told radio station 3AW on Tuesday afternoon.
Moira Deeming arrives at the Federal Court on Tuesday.Credit: Chris Hopkins
The Age spoke to 10 MPs and senior figures in the Victorian Liberal Party from across factional divides – on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters – to gauge whether the legal stoush had affected Pesutto’s support among MPs and the wider party.
Those close to Pesutto said he was unconcerned and had privately vowed to close confidants that he would fight on as leader – even as the trial threatened to extend into late October, with a judgment unlikely until the new year.
Shadow cabinet ministers on Tuesday met at the Melbourne Royal Show for a lunch in lieu of the party’s traditional shadow cabinet meeting, with up to a third of the opposition’s frontbenchers unable to attend.
One told The Age that while there was still a “rump” of MPs unhappy with Pesutto, he had largely retained his support base over his four-day cross-examination. “If you stuck with JP up to now, then there really hasn’t been a reason to jump off,” they said.
The frontbencher said while Sam Groth and Brad Battin remained the “only two potential alternative leaders”, the numbers for Pesutto hadn’t substantially shifted in recent weeks.
Two Liberals said one possible scenario was spilling Pesutto’s job, and potentially all leadership positions, when parliament resumed in two weeks. One MP said Pesutto had tied himself in knots during cross-examination, and dirty laundry would make it difficult to unite.
Another MP, who had voted against the motion to expel Deeming, said the suggestion that supporters had dropped off could be a “huge problem for John” given he had won his initial leadership ballot by only one vote.
The MP, however, predicted detractors were “too gormless to do anything”.
“The real problem for John is why these people thought it was the best time to launch this salvo in the middle of this trial when we are up in the polls,” the MP said.
Bach on Tuesday told the court that it was clear to him that then-premier Daniel Andrews and Victorian Labor would seek to link Deeming and the Liberal Party to the neo-Nazis as well as the record of other organisers.
Chrysanthou put to Bach that nobody in the mainstream media had been talking about Deeming and that it was a political “own goal” to make it newsworthy.
“To think that an organisation as effective as the Victorian Labor Party wouldn’t get this information and use it in quite a devastating way against us, respectfully, I think is politically naive,” Bach replied.
Bach said it would have been an own goal to wait and allow something to play out “the way it was undoubtedly about to play out … to then look as if we didn’t care sufficiently about the matter when we did”.
“The Labor Party has a far better media operation than we do,” Bach said in a reference to the fact the opposition has fewer staff.
Chrysanthou suggested the leadership team was “shaking in fear at what Mr Dan Andrews might do”, which Bach rejected.
He said Deeming didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation.
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