On May 16, former Liberal leader John Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3m in costs to Moira Deeming in her 2024 defamation win in the Federal Court.
Mrs Deeming sued Mr Pesutto for defamation and won her Federal Court case in December last year that she was defamed by John Pesutto in radio interviews, a press conference and in Liberal Party documents by conveying she knowingly associated, or sympathized, with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, , Justice O’Callaghan had found. He awarded $300,000 in damages to Moira Deeming.
On Friday, 16 May, the Federal Court finalized the costs orders with senior judicial registrar Alison Legge ordering Mr Pesutto to pay $2,308,873 (just over $2.3 million) to cover Mrs Deeming’s legal costs.
Reports suggest Mr Pesutto is struggling to raise funds to meet the bill. If his former backers Jeff Kennett, Ted Baillieu and Dennis Napthine and former and sitting MPs do not come to his aid, he is in real danger of being pushed out of parliament, if bankrupted for not paying the legal bills.
Curiously enough, the media reporting on the developments does not seem to entirely side with Mrs Deeming. Take this excerpt from The Age article by Chip le Grand:
“Imagine you are a state MP. If a lawyer, in this case defamation lawyers Patrick George and Rebekah Giles, suggested a way to recover costs that would plunge your party into crisis, force an unwanted byelection and remove any reasonable prospect of forming government after the next state election, would you agree to do it?
The difference with Deeming is that she no longer considers the people who make up the parliamentary ranks of the Victorian Liberal Party her party, if indeed she ever did.”
I was horrified reading this. Why would her efforts to pay her legal bills for monies she owes to her lawyers (of course recovering from wherever legally she can) be seen as “anti-Liberal party”?
Is it not true that Moira Deeming is truly a survivor of the most lethal, potent attack on her political career?
There seems to be a complete dearth of Moira Deeming fans.
The question is – why?
What has she done wrong?
The answer: NOTHING, ZILCH.
After going through a harrowing ordeal, a young mum and first time MP, having put everything on the line, had a win but not without BIG FAT legal bills she needs to take care of. And absolutely permitted by law, now as she seeks to recover the monies, those elders and backers, are crying wolf over the turmoil it may potentially cause.
🔥 “This is all part of an ongoing smear campaign against a woman who was done over by her own leader, who then took him on and won. And the Liberals who are prosecuting it should be ashamed of themselves.
— Rachael Wong (@RachaelWongAus) May 29, 2025
🔥 “This is all so unfortunate, so unnecessary, but this is… pic.twitter.com/IaU4RMBrz8
John Pesutto, a very decent man, I believe was unwisely advised to take the position that she was a Nazi sympathizer.
And as is life, all those who could have triggered John Pesutto to revise his position in time to avoid this long drawn-out court battle, somehow contributed to it by tacitly and overtly supporting its continuance, which has added to the fat legal bill. Some chose to make a public display of it. They knew from experience or ought to have known that this outcome was a real possibility.
Sadly, it is only John Pesutto’s proverbial neck on the chopping block. It is extremely sad.
The whole thing started when Moira Deeming, a former schoolteacher and Liberal member for Western Metro, attended a Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne in March 2023 hosted by British women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen, also known as Posie Parker.
Some neo-Nazis gatecrashed the rally. It did not have anything to do with Moira Deeming or her attendance at the rally. But some in the Liberal party saw that as a ‘vote loser’ and thus an opportunity to neutralize by punishing Moira Deeming, by suggesting to John Pesutto that Moira was a Nazi sympathizer.
Despite her clarifications, and an alleged agreement between John and Moira to release a joint statement to clear the air, which never happened, she was thrown out of the Liberal Party room, forced to sit there as an independent.
Moira launched the court action against Mr Pesutto on December 5, 2023.
Again very poorly advised in my view, John Pesutto chose to fight on against Moira Deeming after he had settled two other defamation cases emanating from the same event, including one by Kellie-Jay Keen. It made no legal sense; he should not have continued against Moira Deeming either.
The outcome was a real possibility. BT warned of the possible outcome last May.
The local Indian community always felt, contrary to those few who occasionally appear with some MPs at functions, that the former premiers should not have taken the position they took. Particularly those politically ambitious migrants, some of them had family members, (wives / daughters) looking for political opportunities, saw this as a battle of the two very un-equals. They saw this as an attempt to scuttle the voice from the humble West, because it had a different tone and tenor to theirs. They flinched at the thought that the elite Liberal members from Toorak and Hawthorn want to control and rule the party from the top. Many saw Moira Deeming’s fight as potentially theirs if and when they jumped into the political ‘cesspool’ as Jeff Kennett calls it.
It would perhaps rattle the likes of Jeff Kennett, Ted Baillieu and Dennis Napthine to know that many migrants see Moria Deeming as their hero. The sooner the head honchos of the Victorian Liberal party understand the need to make it all-embracing broad church, the better it would be.
It will be sad to see John Pesutto go, if he has to. He should be bailed out by the Liberal party, its elders and others who can. Unless the party can show that Pesutto acted against its wishes, he should not be left to bleed alone in this hour of need. His fight was a political one, not a personal one. If it had worked, it would have majorly helped the party.