Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto says he will defend a defamation action filed against his from British provocateur Kellie-Jay Keen.
The British activist has accused Pesutto of “reckless indifference to the truth” in court documents related to the action. Keen, who also goes by the online name of Posie Parker, toured Australia in 2023 with her Let Women Speak open-mike event which largely focusses on opposition to the inclusion of transgender women.
At her Melbourne event a group of neo-Nazi protests appeared adjacent to her event, holding up signs and performing Nazi salutes. In the days following the event Pesutto moved to remove then Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming from his party and made several statements about the event and its organisers.
In a 57-page claim submitted to the Federal Court of Australia Keen claims media releases and interviews from the Victoria Liberal leader had severely false and defamatory imputations suggesting that Keen had associations with far-right extremist individuals and groups including Neo-nazi activists.
She is seeking an apology and aggravated damages.
Pesutto told reporters at Victoria’s Parliament House on Tuesday that he would defend the claim.
“I will be vigorously contesting that proceeding and any other proceeding, but I won’t be commenting further on it,” he said.
The claim was prepared by Keen’s Australian legal representative Katheirne Deves the former Liberal party candidate for Warringah who appeared alongside Keen and Deeming at the event.
On Wednesday, Angie Jones, who also organised and spoke at the Let Women Speak rally also served a claim against Pesutto. The Opposition leader was served the papers within the parliamentary precinct, a move that has been described as a stunt, and a breach of parliamentary protocols.
Today MP James Newbury, the manager of opposition business in the Victorian parliament, made a formal complaint to the powerful privileges committee. Under parliamentary privilege Newbury claimed that one of the two women who approached the Opposition leader was a staffer for Deeming, and the other had been signed in as a pass-holder.
Deeming has responded to the concern saying she’ll deal with the issue at the privileges committee, but in a statement to Sky News said Newbury was “lying or naming people in public without having evidence of what he’s claiming.”
Moria Deeming said the claim made in the chamber by Newbury was an “outrageous and disgusting abuse of parliamentary privilege.”
Deves who is also representing Jones in her defamation action has denied the attempt to serve papers on Pesutto was a stunt. In a statement to Sky News Deves said they had been unable to serve the papers to Pesutto’s legal representatives, and as Jones is a pensioner she had asked a friend “to undertake service of process” on her behalf.
Moira Deeming’s action against Pesutto is set to be heard in court later this year. Last week there was speculation that Pesutto would face a leadership challenge when he faced his parliamentary colleagues this week, on Monday Pesutto said he would not be sued out his job.
OIP Staff
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