Australian MP Moira Deeming expelled from party room over Posie Parker rally speech
Australian MP Moira Deeming spoke at a ‘Let Women Speak’ rally, headlined by Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker. (YouTube/Sky News Australia)
Australian MP Moira Deeming has been expelled from the Victorian Liberal Party room, following her involvement in a Posie Parker rally in March 2023.
Liberal MPs voted 19 to 11 to oust their Western Metropolitan region colleague from the party on Friday (12 May). She will serve the rest of her term on the crossbench of the upper house of parliament in Victoria.
The Victorian Liberal leader, John Pesutto, explained that Deeming remains a member of the party, although this is under review.
“This is not a decision any political party will take lightly,” Pesutto said, The Guardian reported. . “I certainly want this to be the last time we invoke our disciplinary procedures.”
Deeming had been suspended by the party for nine months after attending Posie Parker’s “Let Women Speak” event in Melbourne on 18 March, which saw “gender-critical” activists clash with a larger counter-protest of LGBTQ+ activists.
The rally was attended by members of the far-right National Socialist Movement, who shouted slurs at the LGBTQ+ activists and chanted “white power”, before making Hitler salutes.
Dan Andrews, the premier of Victoria, denounced the gathering of anti-trans activists for “spreading hate”, adding that “Nazis aren’t welcome” anywhere.
“Their evil ideology is to scapegoat minorities – and it’s got no place here. Those who stand with them don’t either,” he said.
After the rally in Melbourne, Pesutto reportedly met with Deeming to inform her that he would move a motion to expel her from the party, describing her position as “untenable” due to her speaking at the event.
Deeming was suspended instead, with Pesutto telling reporters that she was not being expelled from the party because she made “important concessions”, that included condemning comments made by Parker.
“Whil[e] it took a few days, Moira actually provided the condemnation I’d been seeking all along and that provided an opportunity during today’s meeting for me to propose a slightly different outcome,” Pesutto told reporters in March.
However, in a tweet soon after Pesutto’s press conference, Deeming denied condemning Parker, also known as Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull.
But Deeming faced an expulsion motion again after five MPs alleged that she was “bringing discredit” on the parliamentary team by threatening legal action against Pesutto.
Deeming was accused of threatening to sue Pesutto for defamation – something she denies – after it was claimed that he accused her of being a Nazi sympathiser after the rally.
She explained that, as part of the compromise deal that saw her suspended, Pesutto had agreed to issue a joint statement that exonerated her of being a Nazi or Nazi sympathiser, however he denied this.
On Thursday (11 May), Pesutto’s office confirmed that he had received a defamation concerns notice from Deeming’s lawyers, The Age reported.
Pesutto stated: “Nobody could look at that and say that is a tenable position in any political party for one member of the party – whichever the party is – to sue another member of that party.”
On Twitter on Saturday (6 May) Deeming claimed that she had never planned to sue the party, and that she wanted her “name cleared” after her involvement with the Parker rally.
“I have never once considered suing the Liberal Party and reports that I have, or had planned to do so, are false,” she said. “I only contemplated legal assistance as a way of helping me negotiate to settle the conditions of my suspension.”
She added that the weeks following the rally had “taken a terrible toll on me personally”.
PinkNews has contacted Moira Deeming for comment.
