The strife-ridden Victorian Liberal Party has voted to expel a controversial MP who threatened to sue the state leader for defamation.
Victorian Liberals met for two hours on Friday morning, before emerging to confirm embattled upper house MP Moira Deeming had been expelled.
“We are going to move forward and get behind John [Pesutto] and I think it … is time for the Liberal Party to start being a viable option, a different alternative for the Victorian government,” MP Sam Groth said after the meeting at the Victorian state parliament.
“We have been talking about ourselves but hopefully this meeting today draws a line in the sand on the 12 May, that the Liberal Party is going to start listening to Victorians … and [be an] effective opposition [and] by 2026 an alternative government.”
The meeting reportedly voted to expel Ms Deeming by 19 votes to 11.
It also reportedly voted to remove a key Deeming ally, Renee Heath, as party secretary.
Ms Heath was also sanctioned over her taking of minutes from party meetings. Opposition Leader John Pesutto had alleged she produced three different versions of the minutes, one of which was later leaked to the media.
After Friday’s meeting, senior Liberal David Davis said the party room had resolved to move forward.
“We have made a set of decisions. I will leave it to the leadership group to talk in detail, but I think it is a clear and firm direction forward,” he said.
“This is about the future and about us taking on the Andrews Labor government, and let’s be clear, there is plenty to take them on about.
Mr Pesutto is due to give a media briefing shortly.
Friday’s drama – as state MPs gathered for a special meeting to vote on a motion to expel Ms Deeming for “bringing discredit” to the parliamentary party – was the latest in a long-running saga that has divided the Victorian Liberal Party.
On Thursday morning, a day before the meeting, Ms Deeming’s lawyer served a defamation concerns notice to Mr Pesutto.
It warned Ms Deeming may initiate court proceedings if he did not immediately withdraw the motion, publish an apology to her on his website and pay her compensation and legal costs, according to The Australian.
Ms Deeming last week demanded the Victorian Liberal leader agree to issue a statement exonerating her of being a Nazi or Nazi sympathiser or face legal action.
She appeared to back down on Saturday, saying she never considered suing the Liberal Party and instead contemplated legal mediation as a way to settle on the conditions of her suspension.
Polwarth MP Richard Riordan, an ally of Ms Deeming, wrote to Mr Pesutto earlier in the week to urge him to delay the meeting over fears the motion was technically invalid and could led to a messy legal dispute.
The request was ignored.
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Deputy Victorian Liberal Party leader David Southwick said it was clear which way the motion was heading.
“People want to see this put to one side,” he said on Thursday.
It will be the second time the party considered expelling Ms Deeming after she attended an anti-transgender rights rally in Melbourne where neo-Nazis performed the “heil Hitler” salute.
A compromise was struck when the first Mr Pesutto-led motion, supported by a 15-page dossier accusing the MP of protesting alongside people who were “known to be publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists”, failed to garner enough support.
Ms Deeming had been banned from party room meetings under the terms of her suspension. She was allowed to attend on Friday to defend herself, although she reportedly did not take up that offer.
Friday’s decision means the upper house MP remains on the crossbench for the remainder of her term.
– with AAP
