By Tara Cosoleto and William Ton
Former Melton councillor and expelled MP Moira Deeming says she wants to rejoin the Liberal Party after the leader who banished her was found to have defamed her.
Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto lost the Federal Court battle on Thursday, after Justice David O’Callaghan ruled he did defame Mrs Deeming by implying she was associated with Nazis.
Mr Pesutto made the defamatory comments in media interviews and a party expulsion motion following a March 2023 rally Mrs Deeming attended.
Mrs Deeming, who was expelled from the Liberals in May 2023, said she wanted to be let back into the party.
“I was unjustly expelled,” she told reporters on Thursday afternoon.
“I have every right to be there. All the accusations that were made about me – they were just disproven in court.”
Mrs Deeming launched the legal action against Mr Pesutto in December 2023, claiming he defamed her by suggesting or implying she was a Nazi or Nazi sympathiser following the Let Women Speak rally.
The trans-critical event in March 2023, which Mrs Deeming addressed and helped organise, was attended by men in black who performed the Nazi salute on the steps of state parliament.
Justice O’Callaghan found Mr Pesutto defamed Mrs Deeming in a media release, two radio interviews, a press conference and in a party expulsion motion following the rally.
Mr Pesutto implied she was unfit to be in the parliamentary Liberal Party because she was associated with Nazis, the judge ruled.
He also implied Mrs Deeming participated in the rally and knowingly worked with other organisers to help promote a Nazi agenda and white supremacist views, Justice O’Callaghan found.
“The imputations that I have found to have been carried are very serious ones,” he said in his judgment.
“They were inherently likely, using mass media to communicate a message to the general public in Victoria, to cause serious harm to Mrs Deeming’s reputation.”
Justice O’Callaghan determined Mr Pesutto’s defences of public interest, honest opinion and qualified privilege had failed.
He also rejected Mr Pesutto’s submissions that Mrs Deeming already had a bad reputation prior to the rally.
“The evidence established that she, like all politicians, has her detractors on the other ‘side’ of politics,” the judgment said.
“That may be a reflection of what nowadays passes for political debate, but it is not … evidence of the fact that Mrs Deeming has hateful views or gives succour to them.”
The judge ordered $300,000 in damages be awarded to Mrs Deeming.
Mr Pesutto was not in court to hear the decision, while Mrs Deeming was supported by her husband and a group of women.
The group cheered after the judge left the bench, while Mrs Deeming’s husband gave her a hug.
When asked by reporters whether Mr Pesutto should remain leader of the Victorian Liberals, Mrs Deeming said it wasn’t up for her to decide.
“I don’t think he has proven himself to be trustworthy but it’s not up to me to make that call,” she said.
Mr Pesutto stared down a possible leadership coup earlier in October, but a spill motion was not ultimately put to the partyroom after MPs were unable to agree on a replacement candidate.
Mr Pesutto could face another leadership challenge following Thursday’s outcome.
Mrs Deeming was initially suspended from the Liberals in March 2023 then expelled two months later.
