Moira Deeming Loses Vote To Rejoin Liberal Party
Image: Liberal MP Moira Deeming (right) with former Victorian Opposition leader John Pesutto.
Independent Victorian MP Moira Deeming will not be rejoining the party room of the Victorian Liberals after members cast their votes this morning.
A motion in favour of Deeming’s readmittance to the party was put forward by Renee Heath, Joe McCracken, Chris Crewther, Richard Riordan and Bill Tilley, who had argued she had been unfairly expelled in 2023.
The vote was deadlocked at 14-14, with leader John Pesutto using his casting vote to vote the motion down.
However, party rules stated that Deeming needed an absolute majority of 16 votes to be successful.
“The constitutional requirement applies in any event that an absolute majority of 16 is required 鈥� it overrides everything else,” said Pesutto to media following the meeting.
Vote came after Deeming found “innocent”
Deeming was exiled from the party in May 2023, after Neo-Nazis crashed a rally held by anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen. Keen co-hosted her “Let Women Speak” rally outside Victorian Parliament, advocating for 鈥渨omen鈥檚 sex based rights鈥�, which was supported by 听group Binary Australia, and the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).听Deeming, who used her听听to express her anti-trans and anti-sex worker sentiments, helped organise and spoke at the event.
The rally was stormed by a group of听, who performed the Nazi salute and chanted 鈥渨hite power鈥� on the steps of Parliament.
While Deeming condemned the group at the time, she was expelled from the Victorian Liberal party after she refused to denounce the event and its organisers as being extremist, Nazi sympathisers.
Deeming suit Pesutto for defamation after he inferred she was a Nazi sympathiser.
She won the case , with Pesutto having to pay $300,000 in damages.
Party split down the middle
Pesutto described the hour-long meeting as 鈥渓ong and civil鈥�, and was adamant that this would conclude the matter of Deeming’s party membership.
Richard Riordan, who was a signatory of the motion said he was 鈥渇labbergasted鈥� by the result.
鈥淲e are in a worse position than we were to start with in the sense it鈥檚 not resolved, our party room is split down the middle,鈥� he said
Shadow Cabinet Secretary Ann-Marie Hermans听said that the meeting was “very sombre”.
“Most people did not want to speak,” she said.
“I personally don’t think we have resolved it by having a close vote 鈥� internally we will have a lot more work to do.”
Gender-critical supporters of Deeming were aghast at the result online.
Angie Jones, who had her own defamation case against Pesutto, the Opposition leader “an abusive man who weaponised his power to maliciously defame innocent women with few consequences compared to the devastation he has caused us.”
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