Failed vote to return exiled MP opens Vic Liberals rift

A failed vote to allow an expelled MP back into the Victorian Liberal fold is unlikely to keep wolves from the leader’s door.

It took 28 MPs more than an hour to thrash out a motion calling for the return of Moira Deeming after the opposition party’s leader John Pesutto was found to have defamed her.

The upper house MP was expelled from the parliamentary party after a controversial rally she attended in March 2023 was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.

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“This concludes the matter,” Mr Pesutto told reporters on Friday, after the failed vote split at 14 on either side.

While Mr Pesutto used his casting vote, he said technically it was not needed because the motion required an “absolute majority” of 16 out of 30 members to pass under the party’s constitution.

Two Liberal MPs, Cindy McLeish and Nick McGowan, were absent.

Mr Pesutto and his allies appeared downcast when leaving the meeting, but he denied being shocked at the closeness of the result and claims it was a “slap in the face” to his leadership.

“Today was always foreshadowed that we would ultimately revisit the question,” he said.

“It’s been revisited and today marks a bookend to this discussion.”

Former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott slammed the result as “shameful” and a “contemptible failure to act with honour and decency”.

“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,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The motion was signed by Benambra MP Bill Tilley, opposition emergency services spokesman Richard Riordan and first-term backbenchers Renee Heath, Joe McCracken and Chris Crewther.

The rebel group said they wanted to give their colleagues a chance to “do the right thing” after the Federal Court found Mr Pesutto defamed Mrs Deeming and ordered he pay $315,632 in damages.

Upper house MP Bev McArthur said Justice David O’Callaghan had done everything but demand Mrs Deeming’s re-entry into the party room and her colleagues had spurned a chance to right a “terrible wrong”.

“That was our job today and we failed,” she said.

She said the leadership team did not offer any concessions to Mrs Deeming or her supporters during the debate.

Shadow cabinet secretary Ann-Marie Hermans, who also backed the motion, said the draw meant the issue was not resolved.

“Internally we will have a lot more work to do,” she said.

Mr Riordan agreed the matter had not been resolved as the party was “split down the middle”, while Mr Crewther cautioned “it may be difficult to unite”.

Mr Pesutto was found to have made defamatory comments implying Mrs Deeming was associated with Nazis, in media interviews and a party expulsion motion following the 2023 Melbourne rally she attended.

She was initially handed a nine-month suspension before being booted from the parliamentary party after threatening to sue Mr Pesutto.

The opposition leader has refused to resign following the Federal Court decision, triggering former tennis player turned Nepean MP Sam Groth to quit his shadow cabinet.

Mr Pesutto flagged a shadow cabinet reshuffle was imminent but refused to say whether backers of the motion would be left out.

Court first ordered him to pay Mrs Deeming $315,000 in damages, and on Thursday her yet-to-be-determined legal costs were added to his bill.

Mr Pesutto has confirmed he will not appeal the judgment despite suggesting there were “potential grounds” to do so.

Mrs Deeming has been contacted by AAP for comment.