She said her client was highly regarded and viewed as courageous for speaking her mind until Pesutto defamed her.
“He had it in for her over her very strongly held, long-held views on safety for women,” she told the court.
Moira Deeming addresses the Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne in March last year.Credit: Youtube
Deeming will be the first to give evidence in the case and face cross-examination, as part of the three-week hearing.
Deeming alleges Pesutto defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser for her role in the gatecrashed rally. Pesutto is fighting the claim. Matthew Collins, KC, for Pesutto, is yet to make his opening statements.
The state opposition leader settled separate defamation action launched against him by UK anti-trans rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull and Melbourne woman Angela Jones, who played leading roles in the rally.
Pesutto and the leadership team had sought to expel Deeming from the parliamentary Liberal Party in the days after the rally.
Neo-Nazis square off against police at the rally.Credit: Chris Hopkins
The opposition leader said she had associated with organisers and speakers who shared platforms “with people who promote Nazi views or sympathies” and that Deeming had failed to disassociate herself from them. Pesutto said she was not a fit and proper person to be a member of his party.
Deeming was instead suspended for nine months in a last-minute compromise deal, but was ultimately expelled weeks later by the party room after threatening to bring in lawyers.
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She remains a member of the broader party but now sits on the crossbench of the Victorian parliament’s upper house.
Deeming’s statement of claim alleges Pesutto defamed her through media releases, a dossier, the March expulsion motion, in press conferences, radio and television interviews, and in news articles.
She is seeking damages for substantial hurt, distress and embarrassment she says she suffered. Her statement of claim said she feared for her safety and financial security as a result of a “campaign” to expel her.
Pesutto, who is contesting the claims, has argued he was expressing an honest opinion, that circulating his position was in the public interest and that he acted reasonably. Collins will also argue Pesutto’s comments were substantially true.
Pesutto says he has repeatedly and unequivocally acknowledged publicly that he does not believe Deeming is a neo-Nazi or white supremacist.
The trial is expected to be uncomfortable for the party and could destabilise Pesutto’s leadership. Liberal MPs, including shadow ministers, will give evidence both for and against their leader, with their private correspondence also likely to be exposed through the trial.
Pesutto has repeatedly said he had exhausted every effort to settle.
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