UK women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen threatens Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto with second defamation suit
UK women’s rights activist Kellie Jay-Keen has accused John Pesutto of defaming her ‘all over the world’ and putting the safety of women at risk with ‘egregious lies’.
Kellie-Jay Keen has accused John Pesutto of telling “egregious lies” that have put her safety and that of other women at risk.
In an exclusive interview, the Britain-based women’s rights activist said she was considering taking legal action against the Victorian Opposition Leader, meaning he could face a second defamation suit in addition to a case expelled MP Moira Deeming says she intends to file in the Federal Court in August.
Ms Deeming will this week issue the Liberal leader with a third concerns notice, with the intention of initiating Federal Court proceedings 28 days later.
The expelled Liberal alleges Mr Pesutto accused her of being a “Nazi sympathiser and Nazi associate”, and used that as a basis to “threaten and bully” her out of the state partyroom.
The dispute between the pair dates back to Ms Deeming’s appearance at a March Let Women Speak rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
The protest was organised by Ms Keen’s group Standing for Women UK, which campaigns against what its supporters see as the infringement of transgender rights upon those of women and children.
Transgender rights activists held a counter-protest, and a third group, of masked men dressed in black, taunted the transgender protesters and performed the Nazi salute on the steps of state parliament.
Mr Pesutto initially attempted to expel Ms Deeming in March but was forced to resort to suspending her for nine months amid a lack of support from colleagues.
In seeking to make the case against Ms Deeming, Mr Pesutto circulated a 15-page dossier of social media screenshots and media reports – mostly relating to Ms Keen – accusing the MP of “organising, promoting and participating in a rally with speakers and other organisers who have been publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists”.
A letter sent to Ms Deeming by Mr Pesutto’s lawyers in June indicates the Liberal leader stands by this dossier and his original expulsion motion, which will be key to his “truth” defence.
Speaking from Europe, Ms Keen said: “Being lied about in the egregious way Pesutto, and his Liberal Party colleagues, did, was a new very serious low.”
Mr Pesutto’s dossier seeks to portray Ms Keen as having an “association with far-right extremists”, citing a Wikipedia article that states she was interviewed by a “far-right YouTuber” and photographed alongside a Norwegian neo-Nazi in 2019.
“Not only was it unfathomable that anyone would be so cavalier with such vile accusations but it’s mind-blowingly stupid to rely on Wikipedia as a trusted news source,” Ms Keen, aka Posie Parker, said. “He literally put my life at risk. Following his comments, the protests at my Let Women Speak events were far more intimidating and aggressive. In Auckland, I was lucky to get out alive.
“After being assaulted and mobbed, I had to go into police protection until I left the country. I am a women’s rights campaigner who facilitates a space for women to speak about their concerns about the quasi-religious dogmatic cult of transgenderism and the impact on us and our children.
“There must be consequences for those who try to silence me with dangerous lies.
“His comments not only put me at risk, but any woman attending my events, including the courageous MP Moira Deeming.
“It sent a clear message to all women that speaking out runs the risk of being accused of the most heinous things, which may destroy their lives.
“We’re looking at what the best legal route is, whether to go through the Australian legal system or international. Obviously, he’s defamed me all over the world.”
Mr Pesutto’s dossier also made reference to Ms Keen’s use on social media of a profile picture featuring a Barbie doll wearing a Nazi uniform. Ms Keen said the profile picture was a “joke” after she had been dubbed a “Nazi Barbie” by ideological enemies. “I wear make-up and I have peroxide blonde hair, so obviously I was a vacuous, stupid, doll-like woman, and I have views they don’t like so I’m a Nazi,” she said. “I put up the profile picture as a ‘sod you’ to those who had called me that.
“For anyone to think that that was an indication of my political beliefs is so ridiculous, and for a serious politician to actually include that in a dossier to talk about my political beliefs, I just can’t believe anyone is that stupid.”
Ahead of issuing her third concerns notice, Ms Deeming said she had been forced to take the action after Mr Pesutto had “refused to apologise or otherwise make an offer of amends in response to the first two concerns notices”.
“My family and I used our savings to have a defamation lawyer prepare a rebuttal of the dossier so that the parliamentary party leadership team could understand the risk and liability of pressing ahead with my expulsion, but sadly to no avail,” she said.
“This situation was entirely foreseeable. It’s a situation that I spent $10,000 of my own money trying to steer the leadership team away from, (but) defamation destroys people’s lives, damages our careers, and puts us and our families in direct danger.
“What’s worse about it all is that it’s based on an outrageous and easily disprovable lie.
“I believe that every single woman who has been harmed by the defamatory narratives around the Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne deserves to have their name and reputation restored.”
A second member of Mr Pesutto’s leadership team has also been issued with a concerns notice over an entirely separate issue, after upper house deputy leader Matt Bach was accused of defaming Queensland lawyer and LNP executive member Dan Ryan.
In a June article in The Age entitled “Menzies is dead. It’s time for the Liberals to forge a new path”, Mr Bach accused the Mandarin-speaker and former Australia-China Council board member of “odious race-baiting”, prompting Nine Newspapers on Friday to retract the reference and publish an apology.
Mr Bach’s claims related to an opinion piece Mr Ryan had written in The Australian in which he argued that immigrants “strain the social fabric by culturally transforming suburbs”, but also contended that “at some level Menzies underestimated the capacity Australia would eventually have for incorporating people from different walks of life”.
Mr Ryan and Mr Bach declined to comment publicly, with Mr Bach yet to formally respond to a concerns notice demanding he personally retract and apologise.
Mr Pesutto’s office declined to comment on the possibility of a legal threat from Ms Keen.
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