Moira Deeming: The woman who stands in way of Coalition seizing power in Victoria not Premier Jacinta Allan
Liberal MP Moira Deeming’s assault complaint against colleague Matthew Guy and court case against Party president Brian Loughnane threatens the Coalition’s chances of winning November’s election.
One woman, and it is not Premier Jacinta Allan, may pose the greatest threat to the Liberal Party’s chances of seizing power in Victoria after 12 exhausting years.
Moira Deeming, a school teacher from outer Melbourne, on Friday convinced a judge to prevent the Liberal Party from terminating her political career for at least two weeks.
She plans to return to the Supreme Court on July 17 for a hearing to decide if the party has the power to remove her as a candidate in November’s election, a poll the Coalition would be almost certain to win if it didn’t engage in regular bouts of internal warfare.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.A meeting of the Liberal Party’s state executive had been convened on Friday afternoon to definitively resolve the Deeming question, which was made necessary by her allegation, since partially retracted, that colleague Matthew Guy placed her in a “headlock” in front of hundreds of people at a community event last month.
Before the latest controversy, Ms Deeming seemed to have turned around her political career.
Her accidental emergence as a leading opponent of the transgender movement had won her great support on the right. She was lauded by two of the most powerful figures from the party’s conservative wing, former prime minister Tony Abbott and his ex-chief adviser, Peta Credlin, who called her a “superstar” and a “warrior for the west”.
One Nation’s rise and determination to contest the Victorian election increased her bargaining power so much that State leader Jess Wilson intervened to protect her seat just a few months ago.
Then, for reasons perhaps only fathomable by her and her angry husband, Andrew Deeming, she made an assault allegation to police that was quickly discredited by video footage.
Apart from herself, the greatest political harm has fallen on her colleagues in the right of the Liberal Party. Ms Credlin’s husband, Brian Loughnane, has been placed in the awkward position, as the party’s new president, of overseeing the process of removing her as an upper house candidate.
Liberals who supported her through her expensive defamation lawsuit with then leader John Pesutto, which she won, now find themselves embarrassed by the association.
Her lawyers planned to give Judge Kerri Judd an affidavit on Friday supporting her case. Sections covering her mental health would be redacted, they said.
The document has not been made public yet, but its existence suggests the lawyers may argue that previous trauma contributed to Ms Deeming’s strong reaction to being touched by Mr Guy. Video showed him placing a hand on her shoulder or back for three seconds while he leaned over to speak to her during what must have been a noisy event.
Mrs Deeming’s lawyer, Tim Houweling, said this week the complaint was made “honestly, in good faith and only as a matter of last resort”.
Unless there has been a clear breach of the law, judges are often too reluctant to interfere in the operations of political parties, which are naturally combative organisations. But Ms Deeming feels she has been treated poorly — she raised her complaint with the party before going to the police — and does not want to give up her political career.
She is not a person to back down either. Mr Wilson, the party leader, has asked her to apologise to Mr Guy. She refuses to do so. He is threatening to sue.
The consequence is the Liberal Party has been in the news in Victoria this week for what it is doing to itself rather than what it is saying about the Labor Government.
New allegations about union corruption in the government’s Big Build projects were embarrassing for Ms Allan, the premier. The distracted opposition wasn’t able to fully capitalise on the news.
A Redbridge/Accent poll published Monday in the Financial Review suggested voters don’t know what to do with the government. The Labor Party and Coalition were both on 26 per cent and One Nation on 27 per cent, a statistical tie.
Ms Allan’s approval rating was negative 42 per cent, a figure so low that Labor would be heading out of power in any normal election. But voters haven’t decided if the Liberal Party can be trusted, an uncertainty that could worsen through a court case to remove one of their best-known MPs.
