Media reports ‘harmed Moira Deeming’s reputation’, not John Pesutto

Lawyers for John Pesutto will argue it was media coverage of Moira Deeming’s attendance at the Melbourne Let Women Speak event that harmed her reputation, not his alleged defamatory comments.

Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto. Picture: NewsWire / Diego Fedele

Lawyers for Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto will use closing submissions in his defamation trial to argue that it was media coverage of Moira Deeming’s attendance at the Melbourne Let Women Speak event that harmed her reputation, not Mr Pesutto’s alleged defamatory comments.

On Wednesday, Mr Pesutto’s barrister, Toby Mullen, gave the Federal Court a taste of his closing submissions, which will be heard later this month.

Mr Mullen said by the time Mr Pesutto publicly commented on Ms Deeming’s attendance at the March 18, 2023, Let Women Speak event, which was gate crashed by neo-Nazis, media coverage had already harmed her reputation.

“Your honour hasn’t seen this in evidence yet, and this will be in closing submissions, because there wasn’t really a witness to take anybody through on this,” he said. “But there are a substantial number of mainstream media articles on the 19th and the like … the gist of which was … that Mrs Deeming was linked via the attendance of the neo-Nazis at the rally … in a way that we say harmed her reputation.

“We say, effectively, that the people who were inclined to think less of Mrs Deeming, or be persuaded by these links, had already thought that by the time of Mr Pesutto’s publications. Our case on serious harm really comes down to causation, your honour.

“We say the tenor of all of the evidence is that … one of the major reasons that [Mr Pesutto] published the publications was he considered Mrs Deeming had suffered serious harm to reputation and that it was going to get worse and he wanted to effectively cauterise the wound and insulate the party from it.”

Earlier, Ms Deeming’s lawyer, Barry Dean, sought to tender further documents into evidence in the trial, including Mr Pesutto’s apology to activists Kellie-Jay Keen and Angela Jones.

Mr Mullen raised issues with the admissibility of the apology, which Mr Pesutto published after settling cases brought by Ms Keen and Ms Jones in connection with comments he made after their involvement in the event.

He questioned the documents’ relevance, and said there would be “unfairness” in Mr Pesutto being questioned about something “where one can’t really explain or articulate all the reasons”, given the settlements.

Mr Mullen sought to admit more than 500 further documents into evidence, including media articles, tweets, communications with journalists, an interview between white nationalist Jean-Francois Gariepy and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and an interview between Mr Gariepy and Ms Keen.

Mr Dean objected to the admissibility of certain documents, including the videos.

Ms Deeming, an independent MP since her expulsion from the Liberal partyroom, is suing Mr Pesutto over allegations that he falsely portrayed her as a Nazi sympathiser after the event.

Wednesday’s hearing came as rumours swirled about a possible challenge to Mr Pesutto’s leadership of the Victorian Liberal Party.

Judge David O’Callaghan said he was aiming to deliver judgment by the end of the first week of December. The matter will return to court on October 14.