Moira Deeming tells court she knew rally would be ‘controversial’
The ousted Liberal MP has told a court that a fiery and ‘distressing’ internal Liberal Party dispute made her cautious about her own advocacy.
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Ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming said she was “determined to be brave” and go to the Let Women Speak rally, despite security threats, and a fiery internal Liberal Party dispute encouraged her not to be a divisive member of the party, a court has heard.
Matthew Collins KC, representing Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto, continued his cross-examination of Ms Deeming on day three of the defamation action launched against his client, where he sought to determine the MP’s knowledge of past Let Women Speak rallies and whether she informed Mr Pesutto of her involvement in helping to plan the March 18 event that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
He introduced footage into the Federal Court of the Melbourne rally, including disturbing video of the neo-Nazis repeatedly performing the Nazi salute and giving an offensive speech that Ms Deeming said she had not seen before.
When asked, Ms Deeming told the court she was not following media coverage of past Let Women Speak events in Australia, and did not know that protesters against British activist Kellie Jay-Keen had chanted “Posie Parker you can’t hide, you’ve got Nazis on your side”.
Ms Deeming said she was also not aware that Proud Boys member Chris Barcenas attended a 2022 Let Women Speak rally alongside Ms Keen in Miami.
When pressed if she knew the Proud Boys to be a far-right extremist group she answered: “I don’t know what they are.”
Mr Collins suggested the rally was “divisive”, with Ms Deeming giving evidence that she “always” knew the Melbourne rally would be controversial.
“Is it incredibly reckless to present as a speaker and organiser at the Let Women Speak rally … not having investigated matters that were available in the mainstream Australian media?” Mr Collins said.
“No,” she responded.
In the lead-up to the event, the court heard Ms Deeming asked for advice from parliament’s security team as she had been alerted to “personal and group threats” from counter-protesters.
Mr Collins then asked if she believed the rally had the potential to “become violent”.
“Women were afraid of violence by the counter-protesters, I don’t think that they … were to blame for that,” she said.
She doubled down and said that knowing of the threats made her “more determined to be brave and go”.
In probing the extent of her communication about the rally to Mr Pesutto, Mr Collins asked Ms Deeming if she told him of her efforts to book the steps of parliament for the rally and to pay for security for the event.
She then detailed a heated dispute at a Coalition meeting in January last year centred around MP James Newbury publicly expressing his views about duck hunting, which were not shared by the rest of the team, and said the internal blow-up “disturbed” her.
The MP submitted it was that incident that prompted her to approach Mr Pesutto.
“Members of the National Party came in yelling (about) breaking up the Coalition … It was extraordinarily distressful, it was day one of being an MP,” Ms Deeming said.
“I’d never seen anything like that with adults … I asked Mr Pesutto to help me advocate on these particular issues without creating what I had just seen. I did not want to do that to our team.
“And Mr Pesutto was very warm, (he said) ‘Because you’ve come and told me that, it shows me that you won’t be that kind of person’ … words to that effect.”
Ms Deeming told the court she intended to seek advice from Mr Pesutto but a meeting did not eventuate.
Later in the day, judge David O’Callaghan was told that neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell publicly claimed to have protected the Let Women Speak rally, with Ms Deeming rejecting the assertion.
Public statements from former premier Daniel Andrews, Greens leader Adam Bandt and federal Labor MP Josh Burns publicly condemning the protest and linking the Let Women Speak gathering to the neo-Nazis were also put to Ms Deeming
The cross-examination will continue on Thursday.
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