John Pesutto’s first sit-down interview since being dumped as opposition leader: ‘Geez if only I had taken a moment, I could have done things differently or better’

Former opposition leader John Pesutto says “the clock is ticking” in his race to fundraise the remaining $1.8m of his legal debt as he admits he made mistakes in the Moira Deeming saga.

John Pesutto has conceded that he made mistakes in his push to boot Moira Deeming from the Liberal Party, as he reveals a desire to rebuild a relationship with her.

In his first sit-down interview since he was dumped as Victoria’s Opposition Leader in December last year, Mr Pesutto admits his desperate attempts to stump up an enormous legal debt could fall short given he is currently short about $1.7m.

Liberal member for Hawthorn John Pesutto is desperate to pay off his huge legal debt. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

And he has declared that he feels as if he is in a race against time to raise the funds to avoid being forced to declare bankruptcy, which would make him ineligible to sit in the Victorian parliament. 

“Truth be told, yeah, it’s a pretty steep challenge. The clock is ticking, I’ve got to get on with this. There isn’t really time to think about what happens if I don’t (raise that money),” he told the Herald Sun. 

“I’m aware of the serious consequences if I can’t raise the money.”

So far about $500,000 has privately been pledged from supporters, in addition to a GoFundMe campaign that had raised almost $125,000 as of Monday afternoon. 

Mr Pesutto says it’s a ‘pretty steep challenge’ to raise the money. Picture: David Crosling

On Monday, a second “fake” GoFundMe account that stated it was looking to raise cash had been launched without Mr Pesutto’s consent. 

The Liberal Party’s investment arm – the Cormack Foundation – is yet to decide whether it will answer Mr Pesutto’s request to help bail him out of the financial mess.

The Federal Court on Friday ordered that Mr Pesutto pay $2.3m in legal costs to Mrs Deeming after he was found to have defamed her in his bid to expel her from the parliamentary wing of the Liberal Party. 

He has already paid Mrs Deeming $300,000 in damages. Federal Court justice David Justice O’Callaghan found Mr Pesutto had made defamatory imputations in five publications after moving to expel Mrs Deeming from the party because she attended a Let Women Speak Rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis in March 2023.

Mr Pesutto was found to have defamed fellow Liberal MP Moira Deeming. Picture: Arsineh Houspian

Reflecting on the saga, Mr Pesutto admitted that he made mistakes and generally could have handled the whole situation better.

“There is a part of me that thinks ‘geez if only I had taken a moment, I could have done things differently or better’. There’s that element you wrestle with but then I remind myself after a few moments ‘no, focus on what you need to do now and learn from those mistakes’,” he said.

“Am I a wiser person for reflecting on what I could have done differently and better? Yes. It’s been tough on the family but I know it’s also been tough for Moira and her family as well.”

But one narrative that Mr Pesutto has been keen to correct is that he fumbled several offers to settle the case privately before it ended in a public court showdown that ultimately destroyed his leadership and pitted Liberal MPs against each other.

“I did everything that I possibly could to settle the matter. There were multiple offers exchanged between the parties over the journey. There were at least six formal and informal offers. I wanted nothing else than for the matter to be resolved,” he said.

The Liberal Party itself warned Mr Pesutto, while he was still leader in 2023 that they wouldn’t bankroll his case. Mr Pesutto on Monday remained measured in his commentary towards the party – which he has been a member of for more than three decades – but acknowledged he was disappointed they weren’t willing to support him.

“It was surprising to me at the time,” he said.

“I’ve been a party member for 32 years and my whole adult working life has been devoted to the Liberal Party. The jobs I held outside politics were always secondary to the work I did, mainly as a volunteer to the Liberal Party.

“I don’t pretend I was happy at the time with the decision, but I accepted it.”

Mr Pesutto, speaking from his Hawthorn electorate office on Monday, said the long-running defamation feud has been “one of the toughest challenges I’ve had to face”, particularly for his wife Betty and their three daughters. 

Mr Pesutto and his wife Betty. Picture: Mark Stewart

“With that in mind, I draw on all the experiences that I’ve had in public life where I’ve had to pick myself up and make a comeback of some sort,” he said.

“You can never give up. You’ve always got to keep fighting and knocking on doors. If one door doesn’t open you keep knocking on another door to see if that’ll open.”

In private, however, Mr Pesutto reflects on the prospect of not being able to fundraise enough to meet his debt. 

“You weigh all those scenarios and they’re not easy. I’ve tried to discipline myself as best I can to focus on what can I constructively do to raise the money I need to meet the debt and I want to be able to ensure that I meet the debt that I owe Moira … so she can move on and we can both have closure on the matter,” he said.

While he hasn’t spoken to Mrs Deeming since last year, Mr Pesutto has expressed a desire to form a strong working relationship with the first-term MP who was recently promoted to a new role promoting Melbourne’s western suburbs.

If Mr Pesutto falls short, it would spark a potentially crushing by-election in his seat, which he holds only with a narrow 3.4 per cent. 

It means the party would have to throw a considerable amount of money towards a campaign to retain the electorate, but even then many insiders aren’t confident that the party would be able to fend off a strong independent, or even Labor candidate, because of changing demographics in the area as well as the result in the federal election.

Mr Pesutto said he is banking on raising enough funds to pay his bills and avoid a by-election entirely.

Asked whether he still harboured ambitions to return to the top job, Mr Pesutto insisted that he is “very realistic” about his future and that he’d be “happy as you can be” to just serve in a Battin government.

“I think I’ve got more to do and I feel like my best days of service to the people of Hawthorn and the Victorian people are ahead of me, and not behind me,” he said.

Originally published as John Pesutto’s first sit-down interview since being dumped as opposition leader: ‘Geez if only I had taken a moment, I could have done things differently or better’