Moira Deeming: Victorian MP wins $300,000 in defamation battle against State Liberal leader John Pesutto

A decision by the Victorian Liberal Party leader to expel an MP who helped organise a women’s rights rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis backfired spectacularly when he was ordered to pay her $300,000 compensation.

John Pesutto lost a defamation lawsuit on Thursday to Moira Deeming, who became a political martyr for women concerned about transgender rights after Mr Pesutto forced her out of the party.

Federal Court judge David O’Callaghan found Mr Pesutto caused serious harm to Ms Deeming’s reputation by implying she was unfit to be a Liberal MP because she associated with or was sympathetic to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Ms Deeming, who indicated she would be open to rejoining the party in parliament, argues that people with male genitalia who identify as women should not be given access to women’s changerooms, sporting teams or gyms.

“It should not have come to this,” she said after the judgement. “All I did wrong was refuse to defame innocent women without any evidence.”

The ex-high school English teacher has attracted support from senior Liberals, including former prime minister Tony Abbott and Sky broadcaster Peta Credlin.

Her victory in the lawsuit raises questions about Mr Pesutto’s judgement and will likely embolden conservative critics unhappy with his efforts to shift the party leftwards.

Victoria’s Labor State government called on Mr Pesutto to resign. So did former Liberal frontbencher Tim Smith.

The stoush began last March when a rally Ms Deeming helped organise at the Victorian Parliament attracted members of a far-right nationalist group.

Afterwards Mr Pesutto told her, in a surreptitiously recorded private meeting, that he wanted all Victorians to vote for the Liberal Party, including transgender men and women, and she had made that harder.

In the following days at a press conference and in media interviews, Mr Pesutto said Ms Deeming needed to be expelled because she associated with Nazis, even though she didn’t invite them to the rally.

The judge said the Liberal leader should have spoken more carefully.

“The use of loose language provides greater opportunity for the ordinary reasonable reader to infer adverse meaning from the published matter than the use of precise and unambiguous language,” Justice O’Callaghan wrote in the judgement. “And Mr Pesutto knew as much.”

An opinion poll last month by RedBridge showed the Coalition ahead of the Labor Party in Victoria by 51 to 49 per cent.