Imagine this. The chairman of a big bank impugns the integrity of a female director, she’s booted off the board but wins big in court after he’s found guilty of defamation. In what universe would the chairman survive calls from shareholders and regulators to apologise, make amends and, in all likelihood, resign?
What if a conservative male politician told lies about a Labor woman, inflicting enormous reputational damage and, when his claims were finally found to be false, still refused to apologise?
The uproar from the #MeToo movement would be nuclear. But when the man is Victorian Liberal leader and moderate John Pesutto, and the woman is his conservative colleague Moira Deeming, there’s not a scintilla of contrition from Pesutto and dead silence from an outrage industry that’s otherwise on a hair trigger.
The Pesutto-Deeming case matters, not only as a modern morality play but also as an inflection point for a party at war with itself and a broken state desperate for change. It could all come to a head on Friday, in a special Liberal partyroom meeting called to discuss the case and its outcome – the same day as there’s an 11am Federal Court hearing that’s likely to rule Pesutto is liable for a multi-million-dollar costs order.
Already, donors have been approached to bail out Pesutto, with most unwilling to fund a loser’s case and focused instead on supporting the looming federal campaign. Which means if he can’t pay the millions and is bankrupted, Pesutto will be left ineligible to sit in the parliament.
Whatever way it goes, it’s clear this self-inflicted wound is a long way from being healed. If only Pesutto had accepted Deeming’s offer to settle this case for $100,000 plus minimal costs back in February, as letters between lawyers now show.
Instead, he has a verdict against him – and $300,000 in damages plus costs – that calls into question not only his character and judgment but also, as a lawyer, his professional acumen.
Last week judge David O’Callaghan found the Victorian Opposition Leader’s evidence had been “untruthful” and “evasive”. He found Pesutto had never regarded Deeming as an extremist or extremist sympathiser. And he found the real reason Pesutto wanted her out of the partyroom was a fear that premier Daniel Andrews would weaponise the fact the women’s rights rally attended by Deeming had been gatecrashed by neo-Nazis, as if anyone is responsible for those who gatecrash their event. This was yet another case of gutless Victorian Liberals unable to stand up to Andrews.
Is it any wonder the state is a basket case when there effectively has been no opposition to the worst government in its history? Whether it’s lockdowns, catastrophic debt, corruption, rampant union power, crime or culture wars, even a treaty with Indigenous Victorians, the Liberals have gone missing. It seems the only blow they can land is against one of their own, which a judge has now ruled fictitious and against the law.
In these circumstances, what decent leader wouldn’t apologise and move to repair the damage? Instead, in a delusional press conference, Pesutto insisted there was no need to apologise and Deeming should remain excluded from the partyroom. Worse still, he insisted the adverse judgment against him was in the past and that every Liberal supporter should rally around to make him premier.
Fat chance. Frontbencher Sam Groth has already resigned. Five of Pesutto’s colleagues, including another frontbencher, Richard Riordan, have petitioned Friday’s partyroom meeting to discuss the Deeming matter with a view to having her restored.
Then there’s the costs order that even Pesutto’s supporters think could run to $3m. Plus there has been a complaint to the Legal Services Commission about potentially unethical conduct in the earlier settlement of a defamation claim against Pesutto by Deeming’s two rally co-organisers.
Earlier this week, Victorian Liberal Party president Phil Davis emailed all 10,000 Victorian Liberal Party members advising that he’d cautioned Pesutto to settle the case before it went to court. I know he did this because I met with him personally, along with Deeming, to try to broker a deal that Pesutto then rejected. In his email, Davis reassured members that no Liberal Party funds had or would be used to pay for anything associated with this case.
If anything, Davis’s email has left the party rank and file even more exasperated that Pesutto’s stubbornness has ignited another round of infighting when Victorians desperately want a bad government held to account. Right now, the base knows any poll improvement is down to the manifest failures by Labor rather than a positive vote for the Liberals, who are still to release any major policies. They are applying pressure on Davis, as the party’s most senior official, to issue the apology to Deeming that Pesutto is not man enough to make.
The Deeming case has not only crystallised doubts about Pesutto’s trustworthiness and character, it has highlighted the ongoing polarisation of the party into antagonistic moderate and conservative camps. Pesutto, who – before his self-harm over Deeming – was arguably the person most capable of leading the party, is plainly in the former camp and tends to see all issues through the lens of his leafy, inner-urban Hawthorn seat, which he holds by only a handful of votes. Deeming, the former schoolteacher and western suburbs local government councillor, is firmly in the conservative camp.
Going into Friday’s meeting, should it come to a vote on Deeming’s re-admission or on Pesutto’s leadership, the numbers are thought to be locked at 14-all. But there are two conservatives whom Pesutto has promoted, upper house deputy Evan Mulholland and Treasury spokesman Brad Rowswell, who could shift given the likely scale of the costs order. We’ll see on Friday if being principled or craven will win out.
While the party’s electoral support is increasingly from outer-metropolitan voters, the party’s leadership is still concentrated in the established inner suburbs that can afford “luxury beliefs”.
This is a problem in every state and mirrors Labor’s difficulties reconciling its old working-class base with the green activists who dominate its branches. It doesn’t help that the Victorian Libs have been in opposition for more than 25 years, except for one term in power, and have lost the self-belief needed to win and the work ethic necessary to make it happen.
The way the Deeming judgment plays out matters because a state party campaigning against a government that lacks integrity must have integrity itself. It’s hard to hold against Labor the politicisation of the police and public service, the selective weaponisation of anti-corruption processes, the debasement of the judiciary, and Labor’s association with the corrupt and thuggish CFMEU, if the alternative government has flagrantly ignored a judge’s verdict about its leader’s conduct.
As well, ongoing internal uproar about the treatment of Deeming threatens to prejudice Peter Dutton’s chances of winning majority government in 2025. Given federal Labor’s woes, the seats of Aston, Dunkley, Chisholm, Corangamite and McEwen are well within reach if Dutton is to gain the 18 seats he needs – but not if booth workers and donors are on strike out of sympathy with Deeming. Plainly, Pesutto and his allies have decided that someone like Deeming is an embarrassment because she won’t give up her determination to preserve women’s safe spaces. Even though she continues to be a member of the wider party and has widespread support among the Liberal base. If the Victorian Liberal Party won’t stand up for women’s rights, then frankly it has no right to call itself Liberal.
More Coverage
Theatre of dreams and nightmares: Cricket’s Madison Square Garden
It was on Boxing Day at the MCG that Australia seemed to be at their most fearsome. It’s at the ’G where magic happens. And Australian fans needs that magic now.
Fundamentals underpinning global tech’s market leadership
The tech sector is both a dominant force in financial markets and one whose potential is largely misunderstood by many investors. So how will it shape the global economy?