Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto avoids leadership spill

John Pesutto will continue as the Victorian Opposition Leader after a potential spill motion failed to eventuate.

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

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John Pesutto will continue as Victorian Opposition Leader after a potential spill motion against his leadership failed to gain traction.

As he emerged from the Liberal partyroom meeting on Tuesday morning, Mr Pesutto confirmed that no member had raised concerns about his leadership.

“It was a good meeting, a very productive meeting, we discussed a lot of important matters,” Mr Pesutto said.

Last week, momentum appeared to be growing within the party for a move to spill the leadership at the meeting. However, by late Monday it was apparent a leadership challenge was unlikely, with Liberal MPs heavily pressured against calling a spill.

When asked on Tuesday if he was happy no spill had eventuated, Mr Pesutto played down the prospect of a challenge to his leadership.

“Well, I don’t know what all that [the prospect of a leadership spill] was about, to be honest, but everybody’s focused on the job ahead,” he said.

“We’ve got a government that is not leading our state well.”

The potential challenge to Mr Pesutto’s leadership was mooted as he defends defamation claims brought against him by exiled Liberal MP Moira Deeming in the Federal Court.

Senior Liberals told The Australian on Monday that any challenge to Mr Pesutto’s leadership would now be determined once judgment in the trial was delivered in early December.

Mr Pesutto is being sued by Ms Deeming over allegations he falsely portrayed her as a Nazi sympathiser following her attendance at a Let Women Speak event that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.

Ms Deeming was suspended and then ultimately expelled from the Liberal partyroom over her response to the rally and is now an independent MP.

Lawyers for Mr Pesutto and Ms Deeming are due to deliver their closing submissions to the court later this month.

Judge David O’Callaghan has said he was aiming to deliver judgment by the end of the first week of December.

Mr Pesutto declined to confirm whether the Federal Court defamation trial had been a topic of discussion at Tuesday’s partyroom meeting.

“I won’t go into the detail but I had a recap of the last month and I think it went very well,” he said. “I think opposition is a long journey and we are focused on the work ahead.”

Mr Pesutto said he and his colleagues had come out of the meeting with a “real sense” of purpose and a mission to replace Jacinta Allan’s Labor government because “we need better leadership of our state”.

On Tuesday afternoon, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan took several jabs at Mr Pesutto and his defamation trial during question time, calling him “untrustworthy”.

“It’s good of you to squeeze us in between court time,” Ms Allan told Mr Pesutto. “I know the Leader of the Opposition’s been a little distracted, he’s been reading court cases, not business papers.”