‘You can’t be leader again’: Deeming’s demand to Pesutto

Moira Deeming’s deal to save John Pesutto included a demand he doesn’t run for the Liberal leadership for three years.

Moira Deeming and John Pesutto pose for a selfie posted to social media on February 4, 2023. Picture: Facebook

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Moira Deeming’s last-ditch peace offer to John Pesutto included a demand the ex-opposition leader guaranteed not to run for the Liberal leadership during the course of the proposed three-year deal.

The extraordinary demand is detailed in a document the Deeming camp sent to Mr Pesutto this week setting out the terms of a proposal to end the crisis engulfing the Liberals.

Mrs Deeming’s offer also locked Mr Pesutto into paying $1.3m upfront and borrowing $1m from NSW businessman Hilton Grugeon – the millionaire who funded the Liberal MP’s successful defamation action – for three years.

The terms of the deal were included as an attachment to an email Mr Pesutto sent the Victorian Liberal Party’s Administrative Committee in which he explains why he didn’t accept the offer from Mrs Deeming.

“For completeness, I attach the offer I actually received yesterday,” Mr Pesutto wrote in the email. “Due to concerns I had about the offer I received, I considered that it would be inappropriate to entertain it and did not do so.”

Mrs Deeming’s offer also included a clause that “Pesutto not challenge for leadership during the period of the loan, failing which the loan would be in default and he (Grugeon) would call in the debt immediately”.

Mrs Deeming’s proposal also included demands for her preselection to be guaranteed and

“payment now of $1.3m” and the “balance of $1m via a loan from Hilton to JP with a 3 yr term, with interest payable monthly and secured over JP’s property (assuming sufficient equity)”.

The offer also included a formal apology from the party to Mrs Deeming and a review of the party’s dispute resolution process. Mrs Deeming and Mr Pesutto have been approached by The Australian to comment on the latest development in this damaging saga.

The Herald Sun has reported that a member of the public has referred Mrs Deeming to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission over the attempt to tie her preselection to the deal. “As a matter of practice, IBAC does not comment on whether it has a complaint or investigation before it,” a spokesperson said on Thursday.

In an email to the party’s ruling administrative committee members on Wednesday evening, Mrs Deeming said she was “sad”, but her “conscious is clear” over the crisis that is damaging the opposition.

Mrs Deeming told the 19-member committee, which is expected to vote next Thursday on a deal to bail out Mr Pesutto with a seven-figure loan, that she had rejected the $1.2m offer but had countered with a proposal that would result in her receiving an immediate $1.3m, with the $1m balance being paid in three years.

“I am sad that my latest attempts to settle this matter in the best interests of all parties, including the Liberal Party, were not successful,” she wrote in the email. “However, my conscience is clear; I did my very best to try and turn our collective focus away from internal matters and onto the injustices continually inflicted on Victorians by the Labor government.”

Mrs Deeming successfully sued Mr Pesutto in the Federal Court over allegations he falsely portrayed her as a Nazi sympathiser after she helped organise and attended a Let Women Speak rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.