Pesutto risks further dividing Liberals with Andrews the only winner

Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto at a press conference discussing the Moira Deeming Liberal meeting suspension decision. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Luis Ascui

Whatever happens at the next Liberal partyroom meeting the outcome is unlikely to be pretty.

Minutes of the March meeting at which John Pesutto attempted to expel Moira Deeming from the party, leaked to The Australian this week, demonstrate the extent to which a significant number of senior MPs believed he had failed to justify the case against her.

“After the last loss I thought we were taking a new direction. Instead of shooting ourselves in the foot – we are shooting ourselves in the head,” Baillieu treasurer Kim Wells told the meeting.

Liberal planning spokesman David Hodgett said there had been behaviour on both sides of the Deeming-Pesutto divide that had been “absolutely appalling”, while his frontbench colleague Richard Riordan accused Pesutto of asking MPs to kick Deeming out of the party on the basis of “two unjustifiable lies”, namely “neo-Nazi sympathies and hate against the trans community”.

Pesutto and his supporters are hoping Deeming’s declaration that she intends to “prepare a legal challenge” over her nine-month suspension from the party will give them the clear-cut case they failed to provide in March to successfully expel her.

As one senior MP said on Friday: “I thought the March motion was over the top and was happy to give her the benefit of the doubt, but if she goes and sues the leader, that’s it. You don’t get to do that and stay in the Liberal Party.”

But even if that motion passes easily, a core group of MPs who believe Deeming has been unfairly treated remain in the partyroom, where they are unlikely to stay quiet.

Some Pesutto loyalists were on Friday suggesting action would be taken against members of that group, as well as Deeming, for perceived party disloyalty.

Any such action will require a water-tight case to be made against them, lest Pesutto risks further dividing the party by repeating the mistakes he made in March.

Then there’s Deeming’s legal action, which if it proceeds is likely to be an unedifying public spectacle for the Liberal leader.

All of this plays directly into the hands of Daniel Andrews, at a time when his government is weeks away from handing down what is expected to be the worst state budget in decades.