Yesterday I wrote about a decisive win for Moira Deeming – and for all women. She stood against a political machine – one that is supposed to be conservative and on the side of MPs like Deeming, but clearly is not – and she won. See that piece here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/12/12/moira-deeming-vindicated-john-pesutto-loses/
I mentioned in that article that being a breaking news story, many more developments would likely be forthcoming, and much more would need to be said about it. That has been the case. Now that the dust is starting to settle a bit, we are learning about future moves, both of Deeming and Liberal leader John Pesutto.
In yesterday afternoon’s press conference, Pesutto waffled and relied on weasel words. But not one word of apology, regret or remorse was heard. He vowed to stay on. He essentially tried to paint himself as a victim! But of course the real victim here was Moira in particular and women in general.
For daring to stand up for women and children, and resist the radical trans agenda, all that Pesutto could do was smear her as a Nazi. And he was clueless as he could not distinguish neo-Nazis who gatecrashed the rally, and those peacefully standing up to defend the rights of women.
It is time for him to go – now. He arrogantly gambled that he could beat her, but he lost. So he must resign. Not only that, but Deeming should be reinstated to the Party – and made its leader! A petition calling on Pesutto to quit can be found here: https://www.rebelnews.com/pesutto_must_go_petition
And I am not just picking on Pesutto here. So many of the State Liberal leaders are hopeless wonders. Consider the new Queensland premier David Crisafulli who has ordered that no bills on abortion appear in Parliament for the next four years, and no discussion be allowed on it either! As Lyle Shelton said, “Not only has the @LNPQLD become the party of grisly abortion-to-birth, they are now a radical anti-free speech party when it comes to the most important human rights issue of our time. Vote 1 Family First.”
Commentary
Many people have been discussing this big win. Let me feature just some of them and their comments.
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Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister
Moira Deeming has been vindicated by the Federal Court. No Liberal should ever be in trouble for standing up for the rights of women and girls. She should now swiftly be readmitted to the party room.
Queensland Senator GerardRennick The decision is a shocking indictment on the Liberal Party.
Remember Moira wasn’t just defamed by the Victorian State Leader, but was cast out of the Parliamentary Party by the majority of her colleagues in what can only be described as outrageous bullying.
There is more to this than meets the eye. This is actually an insight into the bullying that occurs within the Liberal by the left faction of the Liberal Party.
I lost preselection within the Liberal Party because of the lies spread by the left faction here in Queensland.
Whilst only making up a small percentage of the membership, the left exert too much influence within the Parliamentary Party and the Executive.
This is a cancer on the party as the views of the left wing do not align with the values espoused by the party.
It is for this reason the Liberal party cannot ever be trusted to uphold their values.
Incredibly Pesutto has said he intends to continue in his role showing just how arrogant he is. Pesutto reminds me of the saying “if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.”
Peter Dutton must insist Pesutto stand down and every member of the Liberal Party that voted against Moira be expelled from the party for bigotry and bullying.
I say bigotry, because many members of the left engage in bigotry against LNP members who hold conservative values.
Until that bigotry in the left wing of the Liberal Party is called out and cut out of the party like the cancer it is, the Liberal Party cannot ever be trusted to uphold true blue Australian values.
Lyle Shelton, National Director of the Family First Party
Here’s what Moira’s win means for the fight to protect children, girls and women from radical LGBTIQA+ ideology…..
Family First welcomes Moira Deeming’s win over Victorian Liberal Leader John Pesutto in her defamation trial in the Federal Court today.
She’s been completely vindicated and awarded $300,000 in damages and will probably receive a large sum towards her costs.
This is a great day for all of us, regardless of political affiliation, who are fighting the lie that children’s gender is fluid and that girls and women do not deserve safe spaces.
John Pesutto’s unhinged animus towards her stems from his and the Liberals’ capitulation to extreme LGBTIQA+ gender fluid ideology.
Pesutto was incensed that Deeming was involved in the Let Women Speak rally on the Steps of the Victorian Parliament House in March 2023 – an event which repudiated the idea that gender is fluid.
The event was gatecrashed by Nazis and then Premier Daniel Andrews perniciously and ridiculously impuned that the organisers, including Deeming, were Nazi associates.
Pesutto, ever Andrews’ mini me, jumped on the bandwagon.
The Liberals had supported pretty much all the radical LGBTIQA+ policy passed by the Daniel Andrews’ government, including jailing parents for up to 10 years if they try to stop their children having irreversible gender treatments.
Pesutto wanted the Liberal Party to reflect the so-called progressive view that women could have penises and should be allowed in girls’ and women’s spaces.
This was the basis of his legal defence as his legal team tried to paint Deeming as the weirdo.
But it was Pesutto’s behaviour that hit peak weird when he was upset that Daniel Andrews didn’t invite him to an event where sexualised and gender fluid LGBTIQA+ drag queens were invited into Parliament House to read to little children.
Pesutto’s expulsion of Deeming was about purging the Liberal Party of people who would speak publicly for girls’ and women’s rights and the truth about marriage and family.
His wicked treatment of Deeming, and that of his team who voted with him to unjustly expel her, came back to bite him today.
This is a win for Christians and conservatives who have decided to stay in the Liberal party and fight for Menzien values the party has abandoned.
It’s also a win for parties like Family First who are fighting from the outside, knowing that principled voices for truth are needed in our Parliaments to drag the major parties back to reality.
The dominant woke forces within the Liberals are unlikely to take the Pesutto loss lying down.
This is a battle victory but not a war won.
It’s a great day nonetheless and Family First rejoices with Moira, her husband Andrew and their children.
Pesutto must resign and the Liberals must re-admit her to the party room.
Also, Christian leaders must be more discerning about platforming Liberals looking for votes. A number of Christian MPs voted for Deeming’s expulsion, not having the courage to stand with her.
Renee Heath stands out as one who did stick by her as did Bev McArthur.
What happened to Moira was unAustralian. Liberals must stop trying to cancel people who hold mainstream views.
John Steenhof, Principal Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Alliance
Congratulations to Moira Deeming on her win against John Pesutto in her defamation case in Victoria where she was expelled from the Liberal Party for standing up for women and opposing attack on women by trans dogma. Well done Moira. $300k damages plus (hopefully) indemnity costs. It won’t compensate for the stress and pressure she has been under with the whole of Liberal Party machinery aligned against her and even good Libs scared to stand for her..
This decision exposes the Liberal Party (pretty much in all states) as a sheltered workshop for power hungry technocrats with no principles who will stomp on the vulnerable to uphold elite establishment groupthink.
This was also avoidable. All Moira wanted was an apology from Pesutto. He didn’t have to lose this badly. Now Victoria will get a new Liberal leader. Sadly, that leader is likely to be built from the same blancmange Lego as the rest of them. We need a better class of politician – people like Moira – people who will stand for their beliefs despite whatever prevailing ideological fashions the chattering classes are obsessing about. Go Moira.
Rachael Wong, Chief Executive Officer of Women’s Forum Australia
JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED
Victorian Liberal Leader John Pesutto has been found GUILTY of defaming Moira Deeming MP.
The Court found Pesutto made defamatory imputations via multiple publications that Moira is unfit to belong to the Victorian Parliamentary Liberal Party and Liberal Party because she knowingly associates/sympathises with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, as a result of her involvement with the 2023 #LetWomenSpeak Rally in Melbourne.
The Court found that the imputations coupled with her expulsion has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to her reputation.
Pesutto’s defences of public interest, honest opinion and common law qualified privilege all failed, and the Court found that the defence of contextual truth does not arise.
The Court concluded that Moira should be awarded $300,000 for non-economic loss and did not make an award for aggravated damages.
The upshot of all this is that Angie Jones, Kellie-Jay Keen, and all the other women who attended the rally have also been definitively cleared of Pesutto’s abhorrent Nazi slurs.
Congratulations Moira and thank you
Not only did you stand up for yourself and your family, but against the intimidation and silencing of ALL women who dare speak out about the sex-based rights of women and girls and the harm to kids being wrought by radical gender ideology.
Peta Credin, Sky News host
The job of a party leader is not to be easily intimidated by an opponent that peddles lies; it’s your job as leader to stand up to those lies, stand up for your team, particularly when your own side is unfairly under attack…
If the Liberal Party in Victoria wants to be worthy of the very name, it has to find a new and better leader, if it wants to turn this around, it has to find a new and better leader, If it wants to restore faith, it has to find a new and better leader. Today, Pesutto denied his position was untenable – but as things stand, it’s the Liberal Party’s position that’s now untenable, with a Leader who makes things up, who damages people; and who won’t apologise or make amends, even when he’s found out in a court of law.
Rukshan Fernando, Australian journalist and activist
Congrats to Moira Deeming and the other women who were at the Let Women Speak Rally on their vindication by the Federal Court. I specifically submitted an affidavit in this case in support of Moira because, after being a firsthand witness to the incidents that day, it was crystal clear that the Leader of the Opposition, John Pesutto, was not only defaming his own member, Moira, but also the countless other Victorian women who were harassed and intimidated by left-wing lunatics and neo-Nazi gatecrashers, all because they wanted to speak.
Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls.
Sincere congratulations to MoiraDeemingMP for this important win that not only vindicates her but all women in Australia and beyond that have stood firmly for the rights of women to speak and advocate for their rights. Shortly after she was expelled from her party, I had sent a letter to the Government of #Australia expressing my concern about the unfair attacks she suffered.
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Given that Pesutto refused an earlier peace offer by Deeming which would have cost him a third of his current charges, and given the damning indictment made by the judge, it really is time for Pesutto to go. True, there are not many better Liberals to choose from as leaders, but they cannot be much worse than he has been.
The entire Victorian Liberal Party which expelled Deeming are a collective disgrace. They all need to be replaced.
I tend to agree John.
Australians really have to wake up and stop voting for people who clearly do not understand the very basics of right and wrong.
It appears most Australians do not have a clue as to the damage they are doing or simply do not have the gumption to stand up against it.
Either way we are heading for disaster unless things change. How much time we have will depend on God’s grace but the indications to me are that things could go extremely badly, extremely quickly. A lot of potentially extraordinarily bad things appear to be lining up.
Correct Michael.
And let’s not overlook Justice O’Callaghan’s finding that Mr Pesutto gave false evidence, ie:
[557] ‘I have no hesitation in saying that Mr Pesutto’s evidence at paragraph 45 of his first affidavit is untrue. Having said, on oath, that “in the circles in which I moved including the more mainstream parts of the community I was trying to attract to support the Party (in my view, the vast majority), Mrs Deeming had a bad reputation, particularly for giving succour to hateful and/or extreme social or political views”, when pressed about the allegation, he was unable to provide a skerrick of evidence to support it. That is a shameful state of affairs, because the allegation – which went as far as saying that he “[knew] of no other person with such a bad reputation who has been allowed into the Party” – was self-evidently calculated to defeat Mrs Deeming’s case that she had, or was likely to have, suffered serious harm as a consequence of the impugned publications.’
The entire Victorian Liberal Party which expelled Deeming are a collective disgrace. They all need to be replaced.
I tend to agree John.
Australians really have to wake up and stop voting for people who clearly do not understand the very basics of right and wrong.
It appears most Australians do not have a clue as to the damage they are doing or simply do not have the gumption to stand up against it.
Either way we are heading for disaster unless things change. How much time we have will depend on God’s grace but the indications to me are that things could go extremely badly, extremely quickly. A lot of potentially extraordinarily bad things appear to be lining up.
Correct Michael.
And let’s not overlook Justice O’Callaghan’s finding that Mr Pesutto gave false evidence, ie:
[557] ‘I have no hesitation in saying that Mr Pesutto’s evidence at paragraph 45 of his first affidavit is untrue. Having said, on oath, that “in the circles in which I moved including the more mainstream parts of the community I was trying to attract to support the Party (in my view, the vast majority), Mrs Deeming had a bad reputation, particularly for giving succour to hateful and/or extreme social or political views”, when pressed about the allegation, he was unable to provide a skerrick of evidence to support it. That is a shameful state of affairs, because the allegation – which went as far as saying that he “[knew] of no other person with such a bad reputation who has been allowed into the Party” – was self-evidently calculated to defeat Mrs Deeming’s case that she had, or was likely to have, suffered serious harm as a consequence of the impugned publications.’
Yes right Nick.