The defamation suite brought by Victorian politican Moira Deeming against Liberal leader John Pesutto is set to get underway in a Melboure court on Monday morning.
The trial is expected to last three weeks and senior Liberal MPs are expected to be grilled on the stand about the decision to remove first-term MP Deeming from the party room.
The Victorian Liberal leader moved to have Deeming excluded from the parliamentary Liberal party after she attended a Let Women Speak event organised by British provocateur Kellie-Jay Keen in March.
Keen’s tour around Australia drew large groups of counter-protesters and at the Melbourne event a neo-Nazi group appeared adjacent to where the Let Women Speak event was taking place on the stairs of the parliament house.
Pesutto’s first attempt at removing Deeming from the party saw her suspended from the party room for nine months, but after she threatened legal action, her colleagues voted to remove her permanently from the parliamentary party.
Since then, she has remained a member of the wider Liberal party, while sitting on the crossbench in the Victorian parliament.
In the court documents Deeming alleges that she was defamed by the Liberal leader when he led the push to have her removed from the parliamentary party. In the statement of claim Deeming alleges that Pesutto’s comments implied that she was neo-Nazi and white supremacist, and that she sympathised with those movements.
Pesutto has consistently denied ever calling Deeming a Nazi sympathiser, and has indicated her will “vigorously defend” himself. Deeming is seeking an apology, reinstatement to the party, and aggravated damages.
Deeming’s claim argues that the Liberal leader’s actions led to damage to her reputation, vandalism of her electoral office, retraction of official MP invitations from community functions, social media reactions, threats, jibes, hatred, harassment, abuse, contempt and ridicule through emails, letters and voicemails to Deeming and on social media.
Pesutto previously settled defamation claims and issued apologies to the rally’s main speaker, British provocateur Kellie-Jay Keen, and organiser Angela Jones.
Deeming’s legal team, which includes high profile defamation lawyer Sue Chrysanthou, will rely on media releases and interviews that Pesutto gave in the days following the Let Women Speak event, as well as a dossier of documents that were provided to colleagues.
Pesutto will be represented by Matthew Collins KC, who will argue that Pesutto had never made the claim that Deeming was a Nazi or had a connection to Nazi groups, but Deeming herself has made a false claim on many occasions, likely damaging her own reputation.
The case has likely already cost both parties millions of dollars in legal fees Sources close to the case suggested to the Herald Sun that each party would already been facing bills in the region of $1.5 million. .
On Friday a technical bungle at the High Court saw hundreds of documents relating to the case accidently made public.
They included exchanges between Deeming and Keen, as well as Deeming’s correspondence with staff, journalists and parliamentary security officers.
