Under immense pressure

The mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceeding fine.

Victorian opposition to vote on John Pesutto’s future as leader

Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto will face a leadership spill against him on Friday after a group of Liberals called a special party meeting. 

Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto is set to face a leadership challenge this Friday after a group of shadow ministers called a special meeting of the Liberal party room.

The meeting will formally debate readmitting exiled MP Moira Deeming back into the Victorian Liberal Party team, just a week after a near-identical motion failed due to a 14-all votes deadlock.

MP Moira Deeming was exiled because she knows a man is not a woman.

Under immense pressure, Mr Pesutto on Sunday called a party room meeting for January 15 to readmit Ms Deeming, marking a major backflip for the embattled leader.

So sad when all he did was punish a woman for knowing which sex is which.

Earlier on Sunday, Mr Pesutto publicly apologised to Ms Deeming in a statement announcing the meeting originally scheduled for January 15.

“I have today called a special Liberal Party Room meeting for Wednesday 15th January 2025 at 10am to discuss and vote on a motion moved by me to readmit Mrs Moira Deeming to the Parliamentary Liberal Party,” Mr Pesutto said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.

“Since last Friday’s meeting it has become clear that there is now a definite absolute majority of my colleagues who want this issue resolved with her readmission so that we can collectively put this behind us and concentrate on the Prahran and Werribee by-elections and holding the Allan Labor Government to account.”

“I again apologise to Mrs Deeming as we all work together to ensure the Liberal Party succeeds in winning government in November 2026.”

The leadership spill is the latest in an ongoing saga that saw Ms Deeming win a defamation case against Mr Pesutto earlier this month.

She alleged he had defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser in the wake of an anti-trans-rights rally on the steps of Victorian parliament last year, which was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.

In the aftermath of the rally, Mr Pesutto failed in a bid to have Ms Deeming booted from the parliamentary Liberal Party. She was instead suspended for nine months.

Ms Deeming was eventually expelled from the parliamentary party last May, after threatening legal action against Mr Pesutto, but remained a member of the broader Liberal Party.

Federal Court judge David O’Callaghan ruled the opposition leader had defamed Ms Deeming on multiple occasions, including in radio and TV interviews which “caused or is likely to cause serious harm to her reputation”.

All that vindictive malice because a woman knows that men are not women.

Ms Deeming confirmed on Sunday she had found out about the new vote to readmit her to the party room via media reports and that she had not received any personal apology from Mr Pesutto.

Asked by a journalist on Saturday if he was sorry that he had defamed Ms Deeming, Mr Pesutto said: ” I would say to my party room and to Mrs Deeming that I am sorry for the findings the court made but it’s important to move on.”

In other words, no. What a prince.

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