Victorian Liberals’ ‘pile on’ expelled MP Moira Deeming in secret tapes
A secret recording of the 70-minute meeting between the Victorian Liberal leadership team and Moira Deeming has been released | LISTEN
On the first day of the high-stakes defamation battle between expelled MP Moira Deeming and Victorian Opposition leader John Pesutto, the court was told of bombshell evidence.
Sue Chrysanthou SC, representing Ms Deeming, on Monday informed Federal Court Justice David O’Callaghan that a secret recording of a 70-minute meeting between John Pesutto, his leadership team and Moira Deeming existed and was handed to her legal team a week ago.
That tape has now been released by the court, and key excerpts are in the following audio.
The tape has been a contentious element of the proceedings. It was revealed that deputy Liberal leader David Southwick made the covert tape and Mr Pesutto knew of it since December last year but failed to tell his lawyers.
The leading defamation barrister said the recording, which was played in court on Tuesday, will be key to the three-week trial as it contradicts the affidavits submitted by senior members of the Liberal team which detail their recollection of the meeting.
Why is the meeting important to the trial?
Moira Deeming is suing John Pesutto over his efforts to expel her from the party room and over allegations he falsely portrayed her as a Nazi sympathiser after her attendance at a Let Women Speak rally on March 18 that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
The tape in question captures a meeting held a day after the rally on the eve of March 19.
Liberal frontbencher Georgie Crozier told Ms Deeming she needed to attend the meeting and that it was “non-negotiable”.
Mr Pesutto, Mr Southwick, Ms Crozier, ex-MP Matthew Bach, the Liberal leader’s former chief of staff Rodrigo Pintos-Lopez and Ms Deeming were at the meeting in which Ms Deeming was asked about the protest over the course of the 70 minutes and her associations with Kellie Kay-Keen and Angie Jones, and if she was aware if anyone she had associated with had Nazi links.
At the end of the meeting, Mr Pesutto informed the now independent Liberal MP that he would be moving a motion to expel her.
Ms Chrysanthou said the tape showed the group “bullied and harangued” her client.
“This was a shocking pile on my client by these people. It’s a form of what young people call gaslighting,” she said.
Pesutto tells Deeming he’s ‘getting clobbered’ over her attendance at the Let Women Speak rally
The Victorian Opposition leader begins the meeting by telling Ms Deeming that he wishes to lead a team that regardless of an individual’s sexuality and gender identity, the Liberal Party can represent them.
He continues to tell her that the protests may impede on the party’s ability to “prosecute that broader case and theme” and reminds the MP that she is a senior member of the team as whip of the upper house.
In the audio above, Mr Pesutto raises concerns over people linking the Liberal Party to Nazis and continued media coverage of the protest.
Deeming offended over suggestions she has ‘Nazi Links’
In the meeting the MP gives her recount of the event and tells her former boss that she became aware of the Nazis when they were escorted out by police.
She said the Let Women Speak rally was attended by people of different race, religion and political parties.
Ms Deeming also acknowledged that “everything has come in a row”, referring to her maiden speech which was slammed by former premier Daniel Andrews.
Mr Pesutto then interjects to reassure her he was not seeking to prosecute the views she feels “strongly about” but about potential “Nazi links”. This can be heard in the audio excerpt.
Georgie Crozier says she’s ‘beyond furious’ that the Liberals’ work to hold the government to account is wasted
The Opposition Leader tells Ms Deeming he came into the meeting believing the two outcomes, the first being the MP resign from the parliamentary party or that he “look a process under the parliamentary party rules”, which Ms Chrysanthou later clarified he meant expulsion.
He continues to tell her that he doesn’t believe Ms Deeming knows how “toxic” the matter was for the team.
Ms Crozier then jumps in and says she is “beyond furious” because of the work the opposition have done to “get the worst government in the state’s history on the ropes”.
She mentions the “Redlich strategy”, referring to the party’s push last year secure crossbench support for an upper house inquiry into whether Labor MPs directed independent auditors to “dig up dirt” on the Independent Broad-based Corruption Commission.
A quiet Matthew Bach pipes up to tell Deeming ‘your mob have stated white supremacist views’
Former MP Matthew Bach for much of the recording was silent, but in the second half of the meeting speaks up to tell Ms Deeming that her friends have said “shocking” things in the past.
Mr Bach abruptly quit politics last year to move to the UK to become a schoolteacher.
Before the trial, Mr Pesutto’s lawyers applied for Mr Bach to give evidence in the trial remotely, with the judge ultimately ruling against the request.
In the meeting Mr Bach tells Ms Deeming that he doesn’t see a way forward for her due to the people she had associated with.
One of the main things the group press Ms Deeming on is a tweet from Angie Jones that reads: “Nazis and women want to get rid of paedo filth, why don’t you?”, to which the MP said she believed the message was a condemnation of pedophilia. Again this can be heard in the excerpt.
The trial continues.
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