Moira Deeming viewed the Sky News host Peta Credlin as a Liberal party “mentor” when the pair liaised after the MP was ousted by the Victorian party last year, the federal court has heard.
Deeming is suing the Victorian Liberal leader, John Pesutto, for allegedly falsely portraying her as a Nazi sympathiser after she helped organise and spoke at the “Let Women Speak” rally on 18 March 2023 which was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis. She was expelled from the party less than two months later after initially being suspended in the days after the rally.
The now independent MP returned to give evidence in the federal court on Thursday, for her third day of cross-examination in the defamation trial she brought against the state opposition leader.
Pesutto’s barrister, Matthew Collins KC, showed the court text messages and emails between Deeming and Credlin, who previously worked as Tony Abbott’s chief of staff during his time as opposition leader and prime minister, after the state MP was suspended from the Victorian Liberal party on 27 March 2023.
On the same day, after the party room meeting, Deeming sent Credlin a draft of a statement in which she conceded her attendance at the rally was an “error of judgement”.
She later texted Credlin: “I’m moving to defamation.”
“Before the ink was dry on your statement, you were telling Ms Credlin that you were going to sue Mr Pesutto for defamation,” Collins put to Deeming on Thursday.
Deeming told the court she was not “100% satisfied” with Pesutto’s actions after the party room meeting, saying she wanted a “full exoneration” of everything the opposition leader had allegedly implied, including that she had links to Nazis.
Deeming agreed under cross-examination that she had sent Credlin a letter she had drafted to her parliamentary colleagues about a dispute after the party room meeting, to which the journalist replied with an edited version.
She also told the court, which was shown correspondence including a concerns notice to Pesutto that Deeming sent to Credlin in May last year, that she was keeping the Sky News host “in the loop, in general, at all times”.
Collins said Credlin was a journalist, to which Deeming replied: “I viewed her mostly as a Liberal party mentor.”
Earlier in the day, Collins quizzed Deeming about a YouTube video, filmed on the day of the rally after the event, in which Deeming drinks champagne and sits alongside a co-organiser of the event, the UK gender-critical activist Kellie-Jay Keen, speaking about the rally.
The Melbourne woman and co-organiser of the rally, Angela Jones, and Katherine Deves, a former Liberal candidate who ran for the seat of Warringah in the 2022 election, also appear in the video.
Collins said at the time the video was recorded, Deeming had seen the neo-Nazis perform the gesture at parliament and had been asked by David Southwick, the party’s deputy leader, to denounce neo-Nazis immediately.
“You weren’t in any doubt Mrs Deeming, at the time this video was recorded, on the 18th of March, that what had happened was neo-Nazis had done a Nazi salute on the steps of parliament.”
Deeming replied: “It was very difficult for me to conceive of the fact that there were actual, real Nazis in Melbourne in 2023.
“I couldn’t believe it. I thought, surely, these are just a bunch of horrendous, offensive idiot young people,” she said.
Deeming told the court she would not call someone a Nazi “unless I’m sure”.
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In the video, Keen, referencing the neo-Nazis, said: “I don’t think it’s beyond the wit of anyone to think that that [Nazis] either was TRAs [trans-rights activists] dressed up or police.”
Collins said Keen was suggesting the neo-Nazis might be police or transgender rights activists. Deeming said she had not made this statement.
During her second day of cross-examination on Wednesday, Deeming told the court that she was alerted during the Melbourne event that there were “men in black” nearby but said she only became aware the Nazi salute had been performed when the group was escorted out by police.
She disputed Collins’ suggestion that the rally was anti-transgender or divisive, but said she knew it was going to be controversial prior to attending.
The court was shown a statement made by the neo-Nazi figure Thomas Sewell, hours after the Melbourne event, which claimed the group protected the Let Women Speak rally. Deeming rejected the suggestion the neo-Nazis were there to support the cause of the rally.
On Tuesday, the court was played a 70-minute secret recording of a meeting with state Liberal leaders on the afternoon of 19 March 2023 – the day after the rally.
The event was co-organised by Keen, also known as Posie Parker, as part of her tour of Australia and New Zealand in which it was claimed that the push for transgender rights was silencing, and discriminating against, women.
Deeming has alleged that Pesutto defamed her in media releases, press conferences and interviews he gave after the rally.
In his defence document, Pesutto argued that he “repeatedly and unequivocally acknowledged publicly that he does not believe Deeming to be a neo-Nazi, a white supremacist, or anything of similar substance or effect”.
He admitted to conveying some imputations, including that Deeming associated with speakers at the event who had “known links with neo-Nazis and white supremacists”.
In court documents, Pesutto said he would rely on the defences of honest opinion, contextual truth, public interest and qualified privilege.
The defamation trial is expected to run for three weeks.