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Leaked texts, leaked footage, and a rushed disendorsement meeting — Moira Deeming says the process that ended her Liberal candidacy raises questions the party has yet to answer.

Moira Deeming has resigned from the Victorian Liberal Party to sit on the crossbench as an independent, ending months of conflict with a party that disendorsed her from preselection 11 days earlier.

“My focus has always been, and will continue to be, on representing the needs and concerns of everyday Australians,” Deeming said in her resignation statement. “I was elected to fight for freedom, fair laws, and families.”

“Thank you to those who have supported me”, she posted on X.

pic.twitter.com/ZrxxHnxfRa

— Moira Deeming MP (@MoiraDeemingMP) July 28, 2026

Deeming’s Disendorsement

Deeming’s resignation follows the party’s decision last week to remove her as its candidate for the November state election — a decision that has prompted scrutiny over the process afforded to the Western Metro Region Upper House member.

The chain of events began in May 2026 when Deeming reported an alleged assault to police after an incident at a community function in Sunshine, Melbourne, where former Liberal leader Matthew Guy allegedly grabbed her by the neck.

Deeming has said she reported the matter privately within the party, and that going to police came as a last resort at the party’s own direction.

Police investigated and ruled that no offence had occurred, an outcome Deeming said she “predicted”.

The police finding and CCTV footage from the function were leaked to the media. Guy then went public to deny the allegation.

“I did not do what was alleged. My family name, my reputation is not a political toy,” Guy told reporters at a press conference outside Victorian Parliament.

While the saga played out at home, Deeming was overseas at the ARC Conference in London. She has said she planned, on her return, to point out that the police finding fell short of a criminal threshold and to ask the party to act on what she described as bullying. Instead, a planned meeting was cancelled and the party moved to disendorse her.

Questions Over Fairness

In a detailed statement on social media following her disendorsement, Deeming outlined her account of events and raised questions about the process afforded to her.

“I never refused to apologise. I refused to say I made a false police complaint or that I defamed Matthew Guy,” Deeming stated. “Both allegations were levelled at me publicly. Guy called a press conference and pretty much told the world I was a liar and a man hater, also not true.”

Deeming characterised her private communications about the incident as distinct from her formal police statement.

“Media kept reporting edited snippets of my emotional confidential texts to senior libs taking my complaint — but they are not the same as my sworn police report,” she wrote. “I never accused Guy of ‘violent’ assault or attributed intent to him in my actual police statement — on purpose.”

Deeming explained that in the immediate aftermath of the incident, before viewing CCTV footage, she had described the physical sensation using language that later appeared inconsistent with the recorded footage.

“I told the policeman I couldn’t see what he did exactly… but it felt like my head was controlled, like some kind of ‘headlock’ — that’s clearly not someone fabricating things out of thin air. It’s someone struggling to describe how something felt,” she wrote.

Deeming said that once she viewed the CCTV footage, she corrected her characterisation. “I did the right thing by correcting a term I got wrong and publicly stating I didn’t attribute intent to Guy for what I experienced, in preparation for the meeting Jess had called for when I returned from overseas. But they cancelled the meeting and called for a disendorsement instead,” she stated.

Deeming also referenced broader tensions within the party, noting her concerns about bullying and the party’s response to her previous public statements.

“I have serious trauma and fear of several men in our party due to the last 4 years where they whipped up hatred & violent death and rape threats against me and almost made me homeless,” she wrote.

“Guy himself has a 4 year history of targeting me with hostility — so there was no world in which he could ever grab me, feel me pulling away, override my strength — causing me pain and fear — and pull me towards his face over and across another man’s lap — and have me consider that ‘friendly’.”

Process Concerns

Commentator Osher Feldman has raised questions about the sequence of events surrounding the matter, pointing to multiple leaks of confidential information.

“Moira Deeming reports an assault to the police, on the advice of her own party’s officials. That’s typically confidential. Instead, word she’d gone to police leaks before anyone official says a thing,” Feldman wrote on social media.

“Police investigate, clear Guy: no offence detected. She’s overseas, hasn’t said a word publicly. Shortly after, CCTV footage is leaked to the media, framed as proof she lied. Then her private texts leak,” Feldman continued.

Feldman highlighted the distinction between Deeming’s private communications and her formal police statement. “Private messages to colleagues, sent in the raw aftermath, before she’d seen any footage at all, describing how something felt, not what a camera recorded… It’s a technical term with a precise meaning she didn’t know. That’s a gap between perception and footage, not a made-up story. The moment she actually saw the CCTV, she corrected it immediately,” he wrote.

Feldman also questioned the party’s process in removing Deeming from preselection. “Two days’ notice of the meeting deciding her fate. 10 minutes to respond — virtually, sick and jetlagged off a flight from London. No specifics of the case against her, ever provided. Basically a decision, with a token ten minutes bolted on so it could be called a process,” he stated.

Can this be anything but a setup for @MoiraDeemingMP?

Because it genuinely seems to be the most likely explanation when you add the sequence of events up.

Moira Deeming reports an assault to the police, on the advice of her own party’s officials. That’s typically confidential.…

— Osher Feldman (@OsherFeldman) July 16, 2026

Family First National Director Lyle Shelton has also raised concerns about the fairness of the process, saying “was she given a fair go? I’m not sure that she was.”

“There are serious allegations here of bullying that, combined with the physical nature of Guy’s actions, seem to me to warrant further internal investigation by the Liberal Party and for them to deal with these serious allegations of bullying”, he said in a podcast covering Deeming’s disendorsement. He continued:

“Why would any conservative Liberal woman subjected to the toxic culture of the so-called moderates ever feel safe to bring forward concerns to that party again?

“Imagine if it had been Tony Abbott leaning across and grabbing a woman of the left political persuasion from behind the neck. Her complaints would not have been so easily dismissed by politics and the media class.

“I suspect — it’s my contention — that because Moira is a conservative and a Christian, she has been hung out to dry.”

Shelton also credited Tony Abbott and News24 host Peta Credlin with defending Deeming during her earlier defamation dispute with then-Liberal leader John Pesutto — support he said had not been extended this time:

“Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin have cut Moira loose. The left never do this to their own. They ruck in behind them and protect them. The radical left of the Liberal Party have been given an easy win over someone who is a formidable opponent. A precious seat in Parliament held by someone prepared to be courageous for the truth is probably now going to be lost at the November election. Until conservatives learn to fight hard for their own, they will keep handing wins to those who are the enemies of mainstream Australian families.”

Deeming is yet to confirm whether she will contest the Western Metropolitan seat as an independent when Victoria goes to the polls in November.

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Image via X/Moira Deeming.