A vote on whether Moira Deeming will be expelled from the Victorian Liberal party room will go ahead on Friday, despite the suspended MP’s decision to serve the opposition leader, John Pesutto, with a legal letter warning he could face possible defamation action for doing so.
The Australian on Thursday reported Deeming’s lawyer sent Pesutto a defamation concerns notice, warning of possible federal court proceedings if he does not immediately seek the withdrawal of Friday’s expulsion motion, publish an apology to her on his website, and pay her compensation and legal costs.
A spokesperson for Pesutto confirmed he had received the letter.
“Mr Pesutto has received a letter from Mrs Deeming foreshadowing legal proceedings. As the matter is before the courts, he will not make any further comment,” the spokesperson said.
Guardian Australia understands the vote will go ahead as planned on Friday morning.
According to the Australian, Deeming’s lawyer, Patrick George of Company Giles, alleges Pesutto accused the MP “of being a Nazi sympathiser” in March, when he moved a separate motion to expel her from the party room.
In the letter George, a leading defamation lawyer and the author of Defamation In Australia, alleges the accusation and the motion to expel Deeming was “defamatory of our client, are false, and have caused serious and potentially irreparable harm to her reputation”, according to the report.
Pesutto and his Liberal leadership team had sought to expel Deeming from the party after her attendance at an anti-transgender rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis, who performed the Sieg Heil on the front steps of parliament.
The motion to expel her at the time was never put to a vote.
Instead, at the 27 March party room meeting, a compromise was reached in which she was suspended from the parliamentary party for nine months.
According to sources close to Deeming, as part of the compromise, Pesutto had indicated he would issue a joint media statement with her, making it clear she had not been accused of being a Nazi or sympathiser.
A statement was issued by his office on the evening after the party room meeting but it was only attributed to Deeming.
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Pesutto has maintained he never made such an agreement and has denied he ever accused her of being a Nazi or having Nazi sympathies.
The issue came to a head last week, when Deeming emailed Pesutto and claimed he had not kept to the agreement. She said if he did not release a statement by 2pm on Thursday she would “instruct [her] lawyers to commence legal proceedings”.
After the deadline passed, she emailed all Liberal MPs saying she would be mounting a legal challenge to her suspension.
On Saturday, she issued a statement denying she planned to sue the Liberal party and claimed she only wanted a lawyer’s assistance to help clear her name.
That afternoon, five MPs – Roma Britnell, Wayne Farnham, Matthew Guy, Cindy McLeish and James Newbury – provided notice they would move a motion to expel her from the party room for “bringing discredit” on the parliamentary team.
Sources backing the motion are confident they have enough votes for it to pass.
It is understood Deeming will not attend Friday’s meeting.
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