‘I had to take on the party machine’

A ‘Nazi sympathiser’. This is what Australian Liberal Party politician Moira Deeming was smeared as for fighting for sex-based rights. In 2023, when a gender-critical rally she attended in Melbourne was gatecrashed by a group of mask-clad neo-Nazis, she was baselessly accused of associating with the intruders. Even the head of the Victorian Liberal Party, John Pesutto, joined in the smearing. After being shunned by her colleagues, kicked out of her party and hounded by the media, she had to fight hard to clear her name. Her battle with Liberal Party bigwigs revealed an Australian elite in thrall to gender ideology – but the tide is turning.

Moira was the latest guest on The Brendan O’Neill Show. What follows is an edited extract from the conversation. Listen to the full thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: Many people will remember you as the politician who was kicked out of the Victorian Liberal Party because you believe in biological sex. What happened?

Moira Deeming: I was accused by Pesutto of knowingly associating with Nazis. I tried to get a retraction, which just never came. So we had to go all the way to the Federal Court, where I won all five cases that I argued were defamatory.

After that, there was a vote to have me reinstated in the Liberal Party. Pesutto used his casting vote as leader to keep me out. I think that was the last straw for the public, and the party. After that, Pesutto was replaced as leader and I returned to the party under new leadership.

I experienced the kind of cancel culture that has impacted so many people. I think the reason my story took hold in people’s hearts and minds is that there haven’t been many wins. Usually, when this kind of thing happens, the innocent people don’t win.

O’Neill: What motivated you to take part in Kellie-Jay Keen’s Let Women Speak event in Melbourne?

Deeming: My decision to enter politics was inspired by the issue of women’s rights. Otherwise, I would be very happy in my life at home as a teacher and as a mother to my four children. But I kept on coming across various laws and policies that removed child safeguards on the basis of trans ideology. It got to the point where I found that I couldn’t do my job as a teacher any more. I was worried I wouldn’t be allowed to tell a man he couldn’t use the female changing rooms used by schoolgirls, without being called a bigot. It was just unacceptable to me. It ruined my trust in government.

That’s what drove me into politics. One of the first people I started learning from was Keen. So when I heard she was coming to Australia, I really wanted to meet her.

O’Neill: What was the atmosphere of the event like?

Deeming: From the outset, we were worried about counter-protesters. The trans activists were there, and they were being very violent – including making rape and death threats toward us.

At some stage, a group of men in black arrived at the rally. Initially, we thought they were Antifa activists. They were talking to the police, but nobody really knew what was going on. They didn’t have any Nazi insignias. Really, they just looked like a weird blob of black masks with their own speaker.

It wasn’t until I saw them perform a Nazi salute that I realised who they were. They also carried a horrible sign, which said something along the lines of ‘destroy paedo freaks’. As they were leaving, I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I just saw a Nazi salute outside a history book’.

Never in a million years would we have thought that anyone would have connected those men with us. They didn’t speak to us or come near us. Other than a photograph of one of our women mocking them, there isn’t a single shot or piece of footage that shows we were anywhere near them.

O’Neill: How big a decision was it for you to take on your party leader in court?

Deeming: After Pesutto refused to retract what he said, I felt that I had no choice. It was one thing for him to ruin my political career, but I needed to be able to go on and get a job that allowed me to feed my children and pay my mortgage. Immediately, it became very clear to me that, unless I cleared my name, I was not going to be able to get a job. No one would come near me.

The case wasn’t just a man against a woman. It was a very powerful person against a powerless person. He had a background in the party, as well as the support of three former premiers. I didn’t mean to go up against the party machine, but that’s what turned against me.

I’ll never forget how I felt when I did my first walk of shame to the crossbenches, after I had been evicted from the Liberal Party. The Labor Party was abusing me. The Liberal Party was abusing me. The media were abusing me. The Twittersphere was going berserk. All of these power structures were laser-focussed on this one woman. I remember thinking, why do you all hate me so much?

At the end of the day, this is a fight that every country is having. And, deep down, I think everybody knows the outcome. We won’t stop fighting until we’ve had child safeguards and our sex-based rights returned.

Moira Deeming was talking to Brendan O’Neill on The Brendan O’Neill Show. Listen to the full conversation here: