Pesutto leadership on the line as he faces special party room meeting

Opposition Leader John Pesutto will have to front the Liberal party room on Friday after five MPs signed a motion calling for a meeting to return exiled MP Moira Deeming.

The move is a major test of Pesutto’s leadership after Liberal MP Sam Groth, floated as a potential challenger for the Victorian Liberal leadership, resigned from the opposition frontbench on Friday.

John Pesutto faces a major test of his leadership.Credit: Eddie Jim

Under their own rules, the Victorian Liberal party room must hold a special meeting if a petition of MPs has gained five signatures. On Monday night, opposition MPs Richard Riordan, Bill Tilley, Renee Heath, Chris Crewther and Joe McCracken all revealed they had signed one of these petitions with the purpose of reinstating Deeming to the party room.

In a statement, the five said they had called for a vote that would give the parliamentary Liberal party the “chance to do the right thing, and put behind us any injustices that have occurred since March 2023”.

Pesutto was ordered on Thursday to pay $300,000 in damages and savaged over his time in the witness box in a 250-page judgment that found he injured Deeming’s reputation by repeatedly and falsely implying that she knowingly associated with neo-Nazis.

“It is a simple matter of fairness,” the statement read. “As Justice O’Callaghan’s judgment makes clear, the justification put to the party room for Moira Deeming MP’s expulsion was fundamentally flawed.

Moira Deeming after winning her defamation case.Credit: AAP

“Liberal Party members, and indeed all Victorians, expect their elected Liberal members to act with integrity, and to do right by our colleagues as we would by the state. A vote for this motion would show that we take these expectations seriously.

“As a team, we look forward to closing this sorry chapter for good and moving on rapidly and with decency and integrity.”

The move presents a major challenge to Pesutto’s leadership as he seeks to move on from the damaging defamation trial with Deeming.

The party room meeting would also present an opportunity for a spill motion. As recently as last weekend, Pesutto’s backers were hopeful that any potential contender did not appear to have the numbers to claim the leadership.

Following her defamation win, Deeming has said she expected and wanted to be returned to the Liberal party room.

“I have every right to be there – I did nothing wrong. Everything, all the accusations that were made about me, they were just disproven in court,” she said on Thursday.

Pesutto previously said that any decision about Deeming’s status was a matter for the party room.

When Deeming was expelled, some who voted to remove her said that her choice to sue the opposition leader was a factor in their decision.

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