Expelled Liberal MP Moira Deeming has launched a crowd-funding campaign to help her pay for her legal action against her former colleagues.
Deeming was ousted from the Victorian parliamentary Liberal Party after she attended a Let Women Speak event in May. The event was hosted by British anti-transgender campaigner Kelly Jay Keen. The Melbourne rally made international headlines when a group of neo-Nazi attended at stood adjacent to the group Deeming was involved with.
Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto moved to have Deeming removed from the party room in the wake of the event. At first Deeming’s colleagues handed down a nine-month ban, but a few weeks later they voted to oust her completely after she appeared to issue an ultimatum to the leader demanding a public apology.
Deeming has since issued several concerns notices to Pesutto, the first step in launching a defamation action in court. Deeming told The Australian that she’d tried to resolve the issue directly with Pesutto but now has no option but to push on with legal action.
“I now consider the damage to my reputation and the burden on me and my family have become too much, and will seek public vindication through the courts,” she said.
Kelly Jay Keen has also indicated she plans to take legal action against Pesutto. Deeming says all the women who attended Keen’s event have been treated unfairly.
“What happened to me was completely unjust. I deserve to be back in that partyroom. I deserve to have my costs covered. I deserve an apology and I deserve a retraction,” Deeming said.
“Furthermore, the other women involved in this saga who have also had their lives severely damaged, like me, also deserve to have their names cleared, because the simple truth is that at no stage have the leadership team been able to provide any evidentiary basis whatsoever to justify the statements that were made about us.
“Each one of us has had our personal safety, our mental health, our families and our careers catastrophically harmed.”
Deeming says she hopes to raise $250,000 from her supporters. The donations will be classed as personal gifts and not political donations. Anyone who donates over $600 will be listed on Deeming’s parliamentary register of gifts, but not the precise amount they donate.
OIP Staff
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