Victorian opposition leader, John Pesutto, says suspended Liberal MP Moira Deeming is “not off to a good start” after she appeared to contradict his claims she made “important concessions” to avoid party room expulsion.
A vote to expel Deeming from the parliamentary Liberal party was abandoned during a marathon two-hour meeting on Monday, with MPs unanimously agreeing to a compromise deal that instead imposed a nine-month suspension on the upper house MP.
Pesutto said he agreed to the compromise after she made “important concessions” following her attendance at rally headlined by British anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen last weekend which, according to organisers, was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis, who were photographed performing the Nazi salute.
This included condemnation of comments made by Keen and the rally’s organiser, Angie Jones.
“That’s what I wanted all along. I wanted it to be condemned, and she’s done that,” Pesutto said on Monday. “It would be different if there we no concessions from Moira.”
Hours later, Deeming took to Twitter to deny she had condemned either woman.
Speaking on ABC TV on Tuesday morning, Pesutto said there would would be consequences if she did not honour the agreement made in the party room.
“Moira is not off to a good start. The party room will be very, very seriously concerned if Moira doesn’t prove herself by faithfully observing what we agreed to,” he said.
“It’s entirely in Moira’s hands and it concerns me, it absolutely does, that those tweets appear to be contradictory, but I can tell you Moira won’t be able to re-enter the party room if she’s going to be speaking and acting inconsistently with what the party room agreed.”
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Deeming has not spoken publicly since the meeting but issued a statement, distributed by Pesutto’s office, conceding that attending the event “may have been an error of judgement”.
“As I have stated, I unreservedly condemn the poor taste Nazi jokes and Nazi analogies listed in the annex of evidence against me,” she said.
“I believe I am innocent of all imputations and accusations of any connection whatsoever with nazism in any shape or form and any bigotry whatsoever toward the LGBTQI+ community.
“I support John Pesutto and the leadership team and look forward to working with them into the future to win government in 2026.”
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