Deeming backs down from legal threats as Liberals set date for her expulsion vote

Five Liberal MPs, including former leader Matthew Guy, have put their names to a bid to oust rebel MP Moira Deeming next week from the parliamentary team, after she backed away on Saturday from her threat to take legal action against her party and leader John Pesutto.

Deeming is expected to be expelled from the Liberal party room on Friday after Guy, James Newbury, Roma Britnell, Cindy McLeish and Wayne Farnham signed a notice of motion – obtained by The Age – to expel her for “bringing discredit” on the parliamentary team.

Pesutto on Saturday afternoon said he had scheduled a special party room meeting for 9.30am on Friday to decide the fate of the Western Metropolitan Region MP. Deeming will be allowed to attend and argue her case.

Deeming survived an expulsion motion six weeks ago when a compromise deal was reached to suspend her for nine months over her attendance at a Let Women Speak rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.

The five MPs on Saturday co-signed the notice of motion to expel Deeming after she told colleagues on Thursday that she had “advised [her] lawyers to prepare a legal challenge over [her] suspension”.

Two Liberal sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal party matters, said there was “white-hot anger” among Liberal MPs over Deeming’s actions this week.

Former state Liberal leader Matthew Guy co-signed the notice of motion to expel Moira Deeming from the parliamentary team.Credit: Simon Schluter

One said a separate threat to sanction Renee Heath, Bev McArthur and Ryan Smith – all Deeming supporters – had been withdrawn.

Multiple Liberal MPs, including Deeming supporters, have said they expected the latest push to succeed.

“I remain firmly committed to leading a disciplined, united and inclusive Liberal Party,” Pesutto said in a statement on Saturday.

“Our focus is on Victorian families and small businesses who face a horror state budget with higher taxes and cuts to key services and infrastructure projects.”

The notice of motion to expel Moira Deeming from the Liberal party room.

Earlier on Saturday, Deeming issued a statement denying she had planned to sue the Liberal Party and only wanted a lawyer’s assistance to help clear her name and resolve her suspension.

“I have never once considered suing the Liberal Party and reports that I have, or had planned to do so, are false. It is important to clarify here that I only contemplated legal assistance (eg mediation) as a way of helping me negotiate to settle the conditions of my suspension and to see what was agreed in the party room in March honoured.”

Just before 7am on Thursday, Deeming gave Pesutto and his leadership team – David Southwick, Georgie Crozier and Matt Bach – an ultimatum to issue a media statement making it clear they did not believe she was a Nazi or a Nazi sympathiser by 2pm that day or face legal action.

Her email on Thursday stated: “... if by 2pm today, we do not have an agreed upon statement that exonerates me from the charges laid against me... I will consider that the leadership have failed to honour the suspension agreement and I will be forced to ... instruct my lawyers to commence legal proceedings.”

After Pesutto refused to accede to her demands, Deeming sent Liberal MPs an email at 3.30pm that day advising them she had asked her lawyers to prepare a legal challenge over her suspension.

Yet on Saturday she said that when the party’s leadership team told her on Thursday that her request for legal mediation had been rejected, she immediately told Victorian Liberal Party president Greg Mirabella she would not pursue it further.

“I am moving on,” Deeming said. “I was elected as a Liberal; I remain a proud Liberal; and I look forward to re-joining the party room at the end of the year.”

Deeming said on Thursday she had for weeks attempted to resolve the issue internally, but the saga was damaging her reputation, family and mental health. She said she believed her treatment as a new MP had been unfair and extreme.

“Given that the leadership did not make the statement of exoneration, or confirm my return, and that no mediation or even any minutes exist to settle this dispute, I have advised my lawyers to prepare a legal challenge over my suspension, because I believe that we need to come together as colleagues and have a do-over meeting,” she wrote in her email.

The crisis, which began more than seven weeks ago when Deeming attended the controversial protest, has sent shockwaves through the party and exposed deep internal fractures.

Liberal MPs on Saturday said they were astounded by Deeming’s media statement and that the matter needed to be immediately dealt with by expelling the upper house MP.

“This has become a national joke,” one MP said on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential party matters.

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