Expelled Liberal MP Moira Deeming scores huge $300,000 win in high-stakes defamation battle with Opposition leader John Pesutto
Expelled Liberal MP Moira Deeming was cheered from the court gallery after winning a defamation case and $300,000 in damages against Victorian Opposition leader John Pesutto.
Federal Court Justice David O’Callaghan found Mr Pesutto defamed Ms Deeming by suggesting or implying she was a Nazi or Nazi sympathiser last year when booting her out of the Liberal party.
Ms Deeming alleged Mr Pesutto defamed her following a Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne in March 2023, which was gatecrashed by a group of neo Nazi protesters on the steps of Victoria’s Parliament, a claim he denied.
However, 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.
The judge ruled Mr Pesutto implied Ms Deeming was unfit to be in the parliamentary Liberal Party because of her associations with Nazis.
Mr Pesutto was not in court to hear the decision, while Ms Deeming was supported by her husband and a group of women.
The group cheered after the judge left the bench, while Ms Deeming’s husband gave her a hug.
Earlier in the day a broadly smiling Ms Deeming was seen walking confidently into court flanked by her legal team.
Expelled Liberal MP has won her defamation case against Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto
She declined to answer questions from the waiting press pack.
During the three-and-a-half-week trial in September, Ms Deeming, who is now an independent MP, told the court the black-clad men who were escorted into the women’s rally area by police had nothing to do with her rally.
Mr Pesutto was also sued by British women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen and fellow Let Women speak rally organiser Angie Jones but settled those cases out of court in May.
As part of that settlement he was forced to issue a grovelling apology.
‘I have never believed or intended to assert that Kellie-Jay Keen and Angela Jones are Neo-Nazis,’ he wrote.
‘I agree with them that genuine community concerns regarding women’s safety and access to single-sex spaces, services and sport warrant meaningful public discussion.
‘My comments may have been misunderstood as conveying that I believed this to be the case, I apologise for any hurt, distress or harm that has occurred.’
The Liberal leader has previously said he would vigorously contest all three defamation proceedings.
