Push for Victorian Libs to defer any vote on state leadership until after Pesutto-Deeming case is decided

Victorian Liberals are debating whether to wait until the John Pesutto versus Moira Deeming defamation judgment is delivered before the end of the year before deciding on his leadership.

Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto is pictured leaving the Federal Court hearing. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui / NewsWire

Liberal MPs have been heavily pressured against calling a spill of Victorian leader John Pesutto’s leadership on Tuesday.

It was increasingly unlikely late on Monday that a motion would be moved and passed enabling a vote to be held.

Senior Liberals said any ballot would now be determined once the judgment in exiled MP Moira Deeming’s defamation case was delivered by no later than early December.

If Mr Pesutto loses the defamation case he will be forced to surrender the leadership anyway and potentially face crippling legal bills.

While momentum appeared to be growing last week for a vote, multiple sources said this was now unlikely.

There is dismay that Mr Pesutto had failed to resolve his fight with Ms Deeming before the defamation action became a political sideshow.

Lawyers for Mr Pesutto and Ms Deeming were back in the Federal Court on Monday to admit further evidence into the defamation trial ahead of the parties’ closing submissions later this month.

Ms Deeming, an independent MP since her expulsion from the Liberal partyroom, is suing Mr Pesutto 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.

Dylan Dexter, for Mr Pesutto, sought to tender into evidence 20 new videos. This included an excerpt of activist Kellie-Jay Keen’s livestream of the March 18, 2023, rally, in which Ms Deeming could be seen escorting Ms Keen through the Parliament House precinct towards the rally on Spring St.

Ms Deeming was expelled from the Liberal partyroom over her response to the rally.

Mr Dexter said Ms Deeming’s escorting of her friend on the day of the rally was without authorisation, and the video went towards showing Ms Deeming’s role in organising the rally.

Mr Dexter also played the court a video showing neo-Nazis at the rally, which had been embedded in a post by the Let Women Speak Official page on X on the day of the event which stated: “Let’s see who they harass more, women or Nazis.”

The “publicly available” video “indicated the knowledge as at 12.07pm of the official Let Women Speak page on X that there were Nazis at the rally at that time,” Mr Dexter said.

Mr Dexter also tendered videos of “Mrs Keen’s interviews with what the respondents say are far right channels”, including one with Ms Keen and white nationalist Jean-Francois Gariepy.

A video of a Let Women Speak event on 26 February 2023 in London was played to the court, in which Ms Keen could be heard stating: “Fascist is a new word for legend.”

“Please tell me that you’re not going to be submitting that Ms Keen is calling herself a fascist,” Justice David O’Callaghan said.

“No your honour,” Mr Dexter responded.

“We say it’s an example of Ms Keen displaying disgraceful ambivalence towards the language and symbols of Nazism and white supremacists.”

Justice O’Callaghan questioned the relevance of some of the evidence Mr Pesutto’s legal team sought to admit, including an interview with neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, in which Sewell discussed the attendance of neo-Nazis at the rally.