John Pesutto told former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett about defamation settlement discussions
Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto continues giving evidence in the defamation case brought against him by expelled independent Liberal MP Moira Deeming.
Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto has been accused by Moira Deeming’s lawyer of failing to publicly condemn violence against women who attended the Melbourne Let Women Speak event last year and not investigating claims made by his former MP that she was assaulted.
The state Opposition Leader was back in the witness box on Wednesday to face another round of cross-examination from Sue Chrysanthou on day eight of the Federal Court defamation trial.
Independent Liberal MP Ms Deeming is suing Mr Pesutto over his efforts to expel her from the Liberal partyroom, and over allegations he falsely portrayed her as a Nazi sympathiser after the March 18, 2023, Melbourne Let Women Speak event was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
Ms Chrysanthou told the court that at the rally, people were arrested, horses were punched and Ms Deeming had claimed she was assaulted at the sex-based rights gathering.
She questioned Mr Pesutto on whether he believed it was “horrifying” that an MP had allegedly been assaulted on the steps of parliament.
“Of course, if that’s what happened,” he answered.
Ms Chrysanthou said her client had alleged in a video that she had been injured at the rally and asserted that Mr Pesutto “never publicly condemned the violence towards women at this rally”.
“You didn’t even ask her if she was OK, having watched a video of her saying she’d been injured,” Ms Chrysanthou put to the state Liberal leader.
Mr Pesutto said he had not made a public condemnation on the matters put by Ms Chrysanthou and at the time he was focused on the presence of the Nazis.
Earlier, the court heard Mr Pesutto had divulged parts of settlement discussions to former premier Jeff Kennett in a bid to quash internal party perceptions that he had been “unreasonable” in attempting to resolve the defamation case before it eventually went to a trial.
Mr Pesutto gave evidence that he provided the former Liberal premier with “some” of the names of the MPs who submitted affidavits for Ms Deeming.
Ms Chrysanthou brought his attention to an article in the Australian Financial Review days before the three-week trial began in which Mr Kennett was quoted.
He told the court that he had not shared information with Mr Kennett with the intent he would speak to the media but because he had been briefed on the internal views surrounding him in relation to the case.
Mr Pesutto said he needed to do his job and “maintain the confidence of my colleagues and senior Liberals”.
“I told Mr Kennett so that senior Liberals could be assured that I wasn’t being unreasonable,” he said.
Another former premier’s name came up in the court proceedings, with Ms Chrysanthou asking whether Daniel Andrews’s criticisms would have played a part in Mr Pesutto moving to expel an MP.
“You wouldn’t move to expel an MP merely because Dan Andrews said something critical about them?” she asked.
Mr Pesutto said he wouldn’t take a jab from Mr Andrews as “a singular issue” but that it would be a “consideration”.
Ms Chrysanthou argued that neither Mr Andrews nor the media had linked Ms Deeming to the Let Women Speak event until Mr Pesutto had issued a media statement announcing his intent to move a motion to expel the MP on the eve of March 19.
“Not yet your honour, but the consideration was that it was coming,” Mr Pesutto said.
He said that even before March 18, conversations about Ms Deeming would always centre on the “controversy that seemed to surround her”.
The court was also taken to evidence from last week about a heated Coalition meeting in January last year around Liberal MP James Newbury publicly expressing his views on duck hunting.
Earlier in the trial, Ms Deeming told the court that it was that incident that prompted her to approach Mr Pesutto and ask about how she could continue her sex-based rights advocacy.
Ms Chrysanthou took Mr Pesutto back to the meeting, and asked whether Mr Newbury was disciplined in relation to his conduct at the meeting.
Mr Pesutto said he had not put Mr Newbury through a disciplinary process.
“There is a disciplinary process that is a lower level than suspension and expulsion,” Ms Chrysanthou told the court.
“Did you inform yourself when the issue of Mrs Deeming arose … did you look to inform yourself of what other lesser disciplinary process could be used?”
Mr Pesutto said the leadership team believed expulsion was the course of action.
The Liberal partyroom resolved to suspend Ms Deeming for nine months in March last year, but she was then expelled in May.
The trial continues.
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