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The Liberal Party again shows its true colours by voting down the reinstatement of Moira Deeming.

This morning a special meeting was held by the Victorian Liberal party to determine the fate of exiled MP Moira Deeming. She recently won her defamation case against leader John Pesutto, and it was just decided at today’s meeting that she would NOT be readmitted.

The vote was tied 14 all in the party room, so Pesutto cast the deciding vote, siding against the move to bring her back in the Party. Bear this hard fact in mind: for 23 of the last 27 years we have had Labor in charge, absolutely destroying this state. This vote will likely simply ensure more Labor misrule.

All this raises more questions about the two-party system which has such a stranglehold on Australian and American politics. Just yesterday I wrote a piece sharing my concerns about this, with so-called conservative parties increasingly looking like pale imitations of the leftist parties.

It seems on so many key moral and social issues, Christians and conservatives keep being let down by the Liberals here, and often by the Republicans in America.

While fresh commentary on this will soon be forthcoming by various players and pundits, let me draw upon some comments made just before this vote. A few hours before the vote was decided, guest Sky News commentator Stephen Chavura had posted this on the social media:

Recently we all celebrated Moira Deeming’s victory over John Pesutto. Moira stood up to wickedness and bullying in the VIC Libs at, no doubt, tremendous personal and professional cost. Let’s imagine for a second that Moira decided to “play the long game” and not speak out on trans issues, or that she immediately apologised for attending that rally, or never attended such rallies to begin with. What would Australia have lost with that stance? Rather than keeping her head down when the going got tough, she courageously stood up and said “No”. Moira brought the issues of free speech and trans ideology to the centre of public debate and demonstrated courage to the whole nation, exposing what a disgraceful bully Pesutto is. If the Liberal Party around Australia is going to change, it will not be via MPs playing “the long game”, it’ll be through MPs following Moira’s lead, risking it all, and courageously saying “No” to wicked party policy decisions. Imagine if all conservative Christian MPs did that together, rather than played “the long game”. Imagine if we had 80 Moira Deemings in national Liberal politics! Let me finish by asking, how has the Liberal Party been going over the past 10 years while conservative Christians have played “the long game”? Has it gotten better or worse? We need a strategic paradigm shift. Moira has shown the way.

Also earlier this morning Bernie Finn (who was also booted out of the Liberal Party, and replaced by Deeming!) wrote: “The Victorian Liberals today have their last chance of redemption. If they don’t vote to readmit Moira Deeming to the party room, they are shot, the game is up. I don’t know why Moira would want to go back to such a rabble but justice demands they overturn the grave injustice they have subjected her to.”

Lyle Shelton put it this way:

Will the Victorian Liberals right an egregious wrong when they meet today?

The Victorian Liberal parliamentary party’s treatment of Moira Deeming exposes a glaring hypocrisy in the so-called progressive left and the #MeToo movement.

Despite last week’s Federal Court ruling that found Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto’s conduct towards Deeming was “untruthful” and “evasive,” there has been a deafening silence from those who claim to champion women’s rights and integrity. Where is the outrage?

Imagine the scenario reversed: if a conservative man had lied about a progressive woman, the fallout would have been swift and unforgiving.

As Peta Credlin astutely observes, “The uproar from the #MeToo movement would be nuclear.” Yet when it’s a “moderate” like Pesutto targeting a conservative woman, the double standards are stark.

(“Moderate” is the wrong term to describe someone who thinks a woman can have a penis and should be allowed in girls’ and women’s spaces – the Liberals need new nomenclature for their factions).

The injustice doesn’t end there. Deeming’s “crime” was standing up for women’s rights—particularly their right to safe spaces.

For this, she has been vilified, excluded, and left to bear the brunt of a leader who, as Credlin highlights, is too “delusional” to apologise.

Pesutto’s refusal to accept accountability, even after a Federal Court verdict, speaks volumes about his character and judgment.

It also speaks volumes about the character of some of the Christians in the party room who, according to media reports which have not been repudiated publicly by them, voted with Pesutto to expel Deeming.

A party room meeting is scheduled for today to discuss her re-admission. If these Christians do not change their vote and apologise, preferably publicly, Christian voters will need to be far more discerning when it comes to the Liberal party’s Christian candidates at the next election.

What’s truly at stake here is not just one woman’s reputation but the integrity of a political party and its ability to offer a credible alternative to an incompetent Labor government. Credlin rightly points out,

“If the Victorian Liberal Party won’t stand up for women’s rights, then frankly it has no right to call itself Liberal.”

This case should serve as a wake-up call to all Australians. Hypocrisy and cowardice must not replace principle and justice. It’s time to demand better from those who claim to represent us, starting with leaders who are brave enough to admit when they’ve failed.

The failure of the Liberal Party to uphold basic integrity, women’s rights, the best interests of the mum and dad family, the human rights of unborn babies and economic and energy policies that help families get ahead is why Family First is in the political fight.

Two days ago Janet Albrechtsen said this in part:

When it comes to politics, moderate is a con. If a company used this word in the same way that, say, many moderate Liberals do, directors would be up on charges of misleading and deceptive conduct. Before we get to the ruse, there are some other telltale identifiers of a political moderate. Take Liberal moderates. Many are as wet as the proverbial week-old lettuce leaf. Moderate in this sense means sentimental and emotional. Or to put it another way, completely free of sharp and rational analysis. The other, related, trait of many political moderates is they haven’t had any recent big political wins…

Pesutto didn’t defame Deeming once; that might be vaguely moderate. He did it five times – in a media release, in radio and television interviews, at a press conference and in an expulsion motion and dossier – imputing the worst kind of wickedness. As the Federal Court judge found, Pesutto imputed “that Mrs Deeming associates with Nazis and is thus unfit to be a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party”.

At his press conference following the Let Women Speak rally, Pesutto defamed Deeming by conveying the imputation that she “participated in a rally and knowingly worked with… organisers to help them promote their odious Nazi agenda and their white supremacist and ethno-fascist views”.

In other words, the dictionary definition of moderate doesn’t apply to Pesutto. After trying to claim the high ground by throwing dirt of the worst kind to impugn an opponent’s character, the Opposition Leader faces a $300,00 defamation award, along with staggering legal bills.

When JK Rowling congratulated Deeming a few days later, she exposed another common trait of so-called political moderates. The Harry Potter author and champion of women’s rights noted: “The ‘right side of history’ is racking up a hell of a lot of losses recently.”

And Peta Credlin put it this way:

The Deeming case has not only crystallised doubts about Pesutto’s trustworthiness and character, it has highlighted the ongoing polarisation of the party into antagonistic moderate and conservative camps. Pesutto, who – before his self-harm over Deeming – was arguably the person most capable of leading the party, is plainly in the former camp and tends to see all issues through the lens of his leafy, inner-urban Hawthorn seat, which he holds by only a handful of votes. Deeming, the former schoolteacher and western suburbs local government councillor, is firmly in the conservative camp.

Going into Friday’s meeting, should it come to a vote on Deeming’s re-admission or on Pesutto’s leadership, the numbers are thought to be locked at 14-all. But there are two conservatives whom Pesutto has promoted, upper house deputy Evan Mulholland and Treasury spokesman Brad Rowswell, who could shift given the likely scale of the costs order. We’ll see on Friday if being principled or craven will win out.

While the party’s electoral support is increasingly from outer-metropolitan voters, the party’s leadership is still concentrated in the established inner suburbs that can afford “luxury beliefs”.

This is a problem in every state and mirrors Labor’s difficulties reconciling its old working-class base with the green activists who dominate its branches. It doesn’t help that the Victorian Libs have been in opposition for more than 25 years, except for one term in power, and have lost the self-belief needed to win and the work ethic necessary to make it happen.

The way the Deeming judgment plays out matters because a state party campaigning against a government that lacks integrity must have integrity itself. It’s hard to hold against Labor the politicisation of the police and public service, the selective weaponisation of anti-corruption processes, the debasement of the judiciary, and Labor’s association with the corrupt and thuggish CFMEU, if the alternative government has flagrantly ignored a judge’s verdict about its leader’s conduct.

As well, ongoing internal uproar about the treatment of Deeming threatens to prejudice Peter Dutton’s chances of winning majority government in 2025. Given federal Labor’s woes, the seats of Aston, Dunkley, Chisholm, Corangamite and McEwen are well within reach if Dutton is to gain the 18 seats he needs – but not if booth workers and donors are on strike out of sympathy with Deeming. Plainly, Pesutto and his allies have decided that someone like Deeming is an embarrassment because she won’t give up her determination to preserve women’s safe spaces. Even though she continues to be a member of the wider party and has widespread support among the Liberal base. If the Victorian Liberal Party won’t stand up for women’s rights, then frankly it has no right to call itself Liberal.

This is a sad day for Moira, a sad day for Victoria, and a sad day for all true Christians and conservatives who are absolutely fed up with fake ‘conservative’ parties that continually let us down. What a shameful day this is.

Update

And this comment from Tony Abbott just after the vote was announced: “A shameful result from the Victorian Liberal party room. How can someone elected as a Liberal be expelled on the basis of a lie and not be readmitted once the truth is there for all to see? Especially right before Christmas, the season of goodwill, this is a truly contemptible failure to act with honour and decency.”