During an extended interview with this masthead prompted by the departure of his and renewed speculation about a leadership challenge,Pesutto revealed his lawyers were negotiating with Deeming’s legal team to avoid the cost and damaging spectacle of,slated to run for 10 days in September,where the party’s internal machinations will be publicly examined in vivid detail.
Sources on both sides of the dispute confirmed the parties have discussed a financial settlement and reached agreement on the wording of an apology from Pesutto,which would retract any defamatory comments he made about in March last year.
But Deeming’s demand that Pesutto guarantee her return to the Liberal party room is the major remaining barrier to the case being dropped.
Moira Deeming wants a guaranteed return to the Liberal party room before she drops her defamation claim against John Pesutto.Jason South
Pesutto said even if he pledged support for Deeming’s return from the crossbench into the Liberal fold,he could not guarantee the outcome of the required party vote to rescind. “That is precisely not my gift to give,” he said. “That is always a matter for the party.
“I know that there’ll be a trial at some point,so of course I don’t want to put the party through that. All I can say without going into too much detail about it is that I have tried to resolve the matter. And I’m continuing to try to resolve the matter. Everything that’s within my power to offer up and try to resolve,I have done so.”
This explanation was rejected by Deeming’s supporters,who said Pesutto could effectively assure her return by presenting it to colleagues as the only way of ending the internecine conflict. Under the latest proposal he would abstain from,rather than support,a motion to readmit Deeming,said a source close to Deeming who spoke anonymously to discuss confidential negotiations. Deeming declined to comment.
Moderate MPs canvassed by this masthead expressed doubt that a majority of colleagues would accept Deeming’s return,though none would talk publicly about internal party matters. One Pesutto supporter said it would solve an immediate problem but most likely,create a bigger one. “If they are f---ed now,they are 100 times more f---ed if they let Moira back in,” the supporter said.
The sense of crisis surrounding is likely to deepen as early as this week,when two other women who spoke at last year’s rally,self-described gender-critical feminists Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull and Angela Jones,are expected to issue separate against Pesutto in the Federal Court.
Lining up to sue (from left):Moira Deeming,Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull,Katherine Deves and Angela Jones in a video posted after the rally.Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull
The cases are entwined,with Pesutto’s Federal Court response to Deeming’s claim identifying Keen-Minshull and Jones as associates of Deeming who held “abhorrent” views.
Keen-Minshull and Jones are represented by,a lawyer-turned-Liberal candidate,whose public comments on transgender issues split the party during the 2022 federal election campaign. Deves’ involvement in the cases,combined with the decision by a number of conservative Liberal Party donors to cover Deeming’s legal costs,has morphed the defamation proceedings into an internal party culture war.
Those discussing the separate action declined to be named due to the soon-to-be-live court proceedings.
Without Deeming,there are 30 Liberal MPs. When the party room last elected a leader,.
One MP said the most pressing question was not whether Pesutto’s leadership would survive his appearance in the witness box,but whether he would make it to the courtroom doors as leader.
“There are two groups with two different timelines,” the MP said. “One wants it (a leadership challenge) to happen in September when the court case engulfs him. The other wants it to happen faster.”
Pesutto says he is determined to present a viable alternative to Jacinta Allan’s Labor government.The Age
Despite the looming trial and of two senior advisers he brought in from outside the party to drive his political and media strategies – former chief of staff Rodrigo Pintos-Lopez and former media director Nick Johnston – Pesutto said he remained committed to reforming the party and mounting a serious challenge to the Allan government at the 2026 state election.
He agreed he has not managed to unify the party since taking the leadership in December 2022 and that his approach had “ruffled some feathers” among colleagues. He said the opposition had still done its job:scrutinising government decisions,strengthening parliamentary oversight and elevating in voters’ minds issues he believes will be central to the next election outcome –,the disproportionate cost of (SRL) project and the.
“I want to unify everybody but I can’t sit here and tell you that I’ve completed that project today,a bit over a year in the job,” Pesutto said. “It is going to take a little more time,but my firm view is we are headed in the right direction.
“My job primarily is to drive the team,working with members of the team so that we are shaping the discussion and the policy issues that Victorians are most concerned about. I think we’re doing that and I think we’re doing it well.”
Pesutto listed his team’s two most important policy wins,both achieved with crossbench support,as the establishment of and an overhaul of,which is now chaired by a non-government MP.
He said that when he talks to voters,debt is the second-most common issue they raise behind the cost of living. “They don’t know what the number is but they’re concerned because the debt figure for them is a proxy for whether they are confident and optimistic about the state’s future. Increasingly,they are not.”
A Pesutto government would prioritise installing better oversight and auditing of major projects,he says. “The SRL is not just a debate over one project. The SRL is a debate over the state’s future,and competing visions for the state’s future. We are bleeding out in terms of debt,and it is affecting everything else.”
Pesutto’s plans for government appear a distant concern,given the parlous state of his leadership,divisions within his party room and the long-term,structural challenges for a political party supported by a shrinking,ageing membership more politically conservative than most Victorian voters. Over the past 25 years,the Coalition has governed Victoria for only one parliamentary term.
Pesutto said his two senior staff,a Harvard-educated lawyer in Pintos-Lopez and an experienced journalist and communications adviser in Johnston,left amicably to resume commercial careers. The announcement was delayed until last week so that it wouldn’t affect.
While Pintos-Lopez and Johnston left on friendly terms with Pesutto,they also expressed to colleagues their dismay and frustration at campaigns being waged within the party to undermine his leadership. This masthead understands the tipping point was.
The change was announced in late January during a radio interview by Nationals leader Peter Walsh,while Pintos-Lopez was on holiday and without consultation with Aboriginal leaders.
Pintos-Lopez and Johnston have told colleagues the next election is winnable for the Coalition and Pesutto is the only leader who can deliver victory. Their decision to quit,just 12 months after joining Pesutto’s office,suggests they no longer believe the party will let him succeed. Pintos-Lopez and Johnston both declined to comment.
Rodrigo Pintos-Lopez quit as Pesutto’s chief of staff after a year in the job.Supplied
Pesutto confirmed the change of policy towards treaty was not subject to a party room debate but said it reflects the overwhelming view of the Coalition parties. “My respectful argument would be that we can’t make treaty the sole hinge on which reconciliation depends,” he said. Pressed on what his party was willing to do,other than treaty,to advance reconciliation,Pesutto spoke generally of closing the gap in education,health and other outcomes.
He said restoring the Liberal Party’s electoral viability was a long,bruising and necessary process if Victorians were to be offered a serious choice of government. When asked how he can see this through without a unified party behind him,Pesutto said it was a reasonable question but one that could not distract him from his mission.
“You can’t go into public life being deterred because not everybody agrees with you. You have to know and believe in your gut that what you’re doing is right,” he said.
“I’ve been a member of the party since the very early ’90s. I’m a product of the organisation. I understand it as a movement – its strengths,its challenges,its vulnerabilities. I’m scrupulously respectful of the culture of the party and what it needs to be to win because I’ve seen it when it’s won,and I’ve seen it when it’s lost.
“You have just got to get in there and fight. You have got to keep going and not everybody’s going to agree with you. But if you look at the history of successful leaders,they’ve had to overcome that and push on. So for me,I’ve faced the same discussion about a spill or this and that,every week of my leadership and I’ve pushed on,I’m not going to be deterred. I firmly believe I’m the person to do this.”
Pesutto:“You have just got to fight and you’ve got to keep going.”Simon Schluter
Last week in parliament,even as the Liberal Party took a constructive position in two important debates,its divisions were on display.
Pesutto and his leadership team,seeking to bring his party’s position on renewable energy in line with mainstream climate concerns,decided to support the government’s new wind energy targets.
Upper house MP Renee Heath,a fierce supporter of Deeming,refused to vote for the target,telling parliament it would aggravate Victoria’s “downward economic spiral”.
In another hot-button policy area,the Liberals provided support,subject to significant amendments,for changes designed to hold together the state’s financially stricken workers’ compensation scheme,WorkCover. When the legislation came before the upper house,Liberal MP Nick McGowan launched a tirade against the proposed changes,describing them as a “disgusting attack on workers in Victoria” and an indictment on all parliamentarians.
At the height of his rhetorical flourish,he urged an interjecting MP to “turn your back on the stupidity that is the modern Victorian Liberal Party”. Whether the comment was an error or Freudian slip,it describes the task before Pesutto.
