Jeff Kennett’s complaint last week that the Victorian Liberal Party faces an “extraordinary implosion” over the Moira Deeming affair may well be right. However, if an implosion occurs it will be entirely and predictably down to John Pesutto and those who backed him in his appallingly illiberal attempt to shut down perfectly respectable beliefs on spurious grounds.
With bankruptcy proceedings against the former state opposition leader under way after Pesutto failed to pay Deeming’s legal costs of $2.3m by last Friday’s deadline, it pays to remember who’s to blame for this debacle.
While Kennett disputes his level of support for Pesutto’s campaign against Deeming, it does seem clear that neither Kennett nor two other former Liberal premiers, Ted Baillieu and Denis Napthine, or the two senior Liberal MPs Georgie Crozier and David Southwick, all of whom have been cited by Deeming as backing Pesutto’s efforts, did what they should have done. Namely, told Pesutto to stop the madness.
Not only do they all stand condemned by this failure, they illustrate to the Victorian public why the Liberal Party in that state is such an abject mess.
This is not, however, just a Victorian disaster. The factional thuggery and sheer stupidity of the Victorian branch carries national lessons for the Liberal Party.
To understand what happened in Victoria, the judgment of Federal Court Justice David O’Callaghan in the defamation action brought by Deeming against Pesutto is compulsory reading. The basic facts are well known.
Deeming spoke at a Let Women Speak rally that, without any knowledge or approval from Deeming, was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis (as well as trans rights activists and Socialist Alternative demonstrators).
Pesutto almost immediately put plans in place to have Deeming expelled from the party.
Over the next few days, Pesutto was busy. He issued a media release, gave radio and TV interviews, a press conference, and had circulated to the media an “expulsion motion and dossier”.
Justice O’Callaghan found Pesutto made several highly defamatory comments about Deeming, including that she associated with neo-Nazis and was unfit to continue to be a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party.
Parts of O’Callaghan’s judgment were particularly scathing about a defendant who was, after all, a solicitor, as well as leader of the opposition. He found parts of Pesutto’s affidavit evidence were simply untrue.
He found “Mr Pesutto’s evidence about what he called Mrs Deeming’s bad reputation was gratuitously offensive, because, when asked to justify the slur, he could not”. He complained about Pesutto’s “lengthy and non-responsive answers to questions”.
Most tellingly, the judge awarded Deeming costs on an indemnity basis for all costs incurred after February 12, 2024, because Pesutto ignored Deeming’s settlement offer (which required no apology) at that time of $99,000, substantially lower than the amount she was eventually awarded. Pesutto compounded this misjudgment by pursuing his stiff-necked unwillingness to admit error. He now reaps what he deliberately sowed.
All this because Pesutto disliked Deeming’s fierce advocacy of women’s sex-based rights and feared Dan Andrews would make political capital out of them.
Now you don’t have to agree with all, or indeed any, of Deeming’s views to recognise they are widely shared – and not just by JK Rowling. A powerful argument can be made that, after the recent UK Supreme Court decision that the definition of woman in Britain’s Equality Act refers to “biological sex”, Deeming is, to borrow a favourite left-wing phrase, on the right side of history.
The critical point for a so-called Liberal Party is Deeming’s views should never have been a sacking offence. Pesutto could have removed her as whip, or counselled her, or publicly disavowed her views. But why try to expel her from the party? And when caught out making plainly false and highly defamatory comments about her, why not simply admit he had gone too far and apologise? Deeming gave detailed evidence – that, tellingly, Pesutto did not challenge – about the emotional, physical and reputational damage done to a woman who was too scared to go out in public with her young children for fear of what they would endure.
Neither did Pesutto challenge this from Deeming: “I was so hurt that the leadership team had betrayed every principle we were supposed to protect – women, children, family, free association, free speech, due process, civil rights, even just common decency. I wondered how they could ever be trusted by ordinary people to fight for their rights when they so callously and unfairly persisted in persecuting an innocent woman and tearing strips off her in front of the whole world.”
All along, Pesutto, with at least some prominent Liberals egging him on, doubled down. Three days before the defamation trial began, former Victorian Liberal premier Kennett said he knew who had made affidavits in support of Deeming. Describing them as “disloyal, and perhaps even treacherous”, Kennett said those MPs would be “dealt with in due course when preselections are called for the next election”. This was political thuggery, and Pesutto, and perhaps Kennett, must now live with its consequences.
The political lesson for the Liberal Party is about what constitutes acceptable forms of disagreement inside the “broad church”. John Howard’s government is the best, but not the only, evidence that the Liberal Party, and indeed the Coalition, is politically most successful when the moderate and the conservative factions within it can coexist.
Competition is fine and indeed desirable. Contested preselections and fierce debates about policy are necessary and healthy.
Pesutto, though, wanted much more. He didn’t want a debate inside the party or in public. He wanted Deeming expelled. Gone. Finished. This sadly seems to be a common feature of the moderate wing of the party – they are so convinced of their moral superiority, they believe contrary views are not merely wrong but that those espousing them should vamoose.
Watching the NSW moderates in action reveals this illiberal brutality is not confined to Victoria. In fairness, in the past the conservative wing of the party has been every bit as ugly. Stories about the so-called Clan in the WA branch of the party are equally unedifying, although their methods at least were not so laugh-out-loud incompetent as Pesutto’s attempt to expel Deeming. But at this juncture, the poorly named moderates are busily behaving not very moderately.
It is passing strange that the moderates’ Neanderthal political methods are so at odds with their frequently mushy-minded, Pollyanna-style public persona.
Sussan Ley’s new slogan that the Libs need to “meet voters where they are” is a case in point. What on earth does this mean? More entitlements for those who want more money. Less work for those who want to slack off on the same wage? “Meet voters where they are” is only just outmatched for meaninglessness by Julia Gillard’s “we are us” comment. Ultimately, empathy can take a politician only so far. Jacinda Ardern may have been the most loveable, caring and media-savvy politician the southern hemisphere has seen, but history will recall her leadership as an utter failure to achieve its stated goals.
Ley’s weekend outreach to voters in the Australian Financial Review was more of the same. To be sure, it’s all meet-and-greet at the moment with an Opposition Leader most Australians won’t have heard about. “As for glass cliffs, I couldn’t give a stuff,” Ley said. Fair enough. But soon Ley will need to offer Australians more than fluff. A marriage of presentation with good policy and demonstrated implementation skills is required. That demands the broad church. Conservatives can be hard to sell, moderates can subordinate good policy to feel good emoting. Both are needed – and each needs to stop trying to defenestrate the other.
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