Victoria's Opposition leader John Pesutto's leadership is once again under pressure. His MPs are split down the middle on a rebel plan to let excluded MP Moira Deeming back into the fold. The vote to readmit Ms Deeming to the party room was tied and while Mr Pesutto says the vote ends a sorry chapter for the Opposition there could be more internal pain to come.
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00:00Tis the season to be jolly, unless you're a Liberal.
00:06MPs put on a brave face, emerging from a party meeting as divided as ever.
00:12At least half the room is, after a push to re-admit the banished Moira Deeming into the
00:17party room failed.
00:18As far as the votes are, it was a 14 all, and the Leader of the Opposition used his
00:23casting vote to oppose the motion.
00:27The Leader had to use his casting vote to save himself.
00:30Compromise should have been reached.
00:32Ms Deeming was suspended from the party room in 2023, after she attended an anti-trans
00:37rights rally that was gate-crashed by neo-Nazis.
00:40She was then expelled after she took legal action against Leader John Pasuto, alleging
00:44he defamed her, by suggesting she was a Nazi sympathiser.
00:48Everybody's hurting over this, and we've all been internally bleeding from it.
00:52Last week she won the defamation case, reopening deep divisions and prompting her supporters
00:57to move to get her back.
00:59I'm flabbergasted, we're in a worse position than we were to start with, in the sense that
01:05it's not resolved, our party room is split down the middle.
01:10It's a simple right or wrong, we made a mistake, we need to fix it.
01:13In a statement, Ms Deeming said she was deeply disappointed she wouldn't be re-admitted,
01:18saying...
01:19John Pasuto's inability to admit his mistakes speaks volumes for his character and his fitness
01:24for our state's highest office.
01:26Today marks a bookend to this discussion.
01:28Do you get a leadership whistle for the end of it?
01:30No, I don't believe so at all.
01:31I personally don't think that we have resolved it by having such a close vote.
01:35The state is on fire, and this needs to end so we can get back to what we need to be doing.
01:40It may be difficult to unite.
01:42And that's a challenge for a man whose leadership is under the pump.