Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming has dropped legal action against her own party as she seeks to make a last-ditch appeal to avoid being disendorsed before the state election. Deeming launched an 11th-hour supreme court challenge against the Victorian Liberal party president, Brian Loughnane, on 3 July after she made an assault allegation against former leader Matthew Guy and subsequently rejected calls to apologise after Victoria police determined “there was no offence detected”.
Deeming withdraws supreme court case
Deeming announced late on Wednesday that she had withdrawn the case. “The injunction has achieved exactly what it intended to achieve,” she wrote in a statement posted to social media. The MP, who sits in the upper house for the Western Metropolitan Region, is facing being disendorsed as a candidate before November’s state election.
On Wednesday, Deeming sent a 12-page statement to the party’s state executive, providing a mediation proposal that allowed her to end the supreme court action. “The state executive, having all the evidence before them, can now decide whether to pursue mediation or reconvene to disendorse me,” she said.
Deeming’s statement and allegations
“From beginning to end, I progressed the issue in good faith, respected the confidentiality of all involved, submitted myself to the instructions and policies of the party and obeyed the law rather than run it through the media. For my part, I will continue doing my work serving Victorians and fighting Labor,” Deeming added.
CCTV footage from a function in May showed Guy placing his hand on Deeming’s upper back as they lean in to talk to one another. Police reviewed the CCTV and concluded no offence was committed. Deeming had accused her colleague of grabbing her “violently” in a headlock but since claimed she misunderstood the meaning of headlock. “Having been overseas and unwell when the story broke and jetlagged and unwell when the disendorsement meeting was called, the injunction gave me time to recover, review all the facts, learn the difference between a headlock and a collar-tie grip, and gather my thoughts,” she later clarified.
Guy’s response and party reaction
Guy told reporters in June that Deeming had owed him a public apology, adding he vehemently denied that anything untoward took place. “Moira Deeming owes me a public apology. I’m owed an apology by the premier and the attorney general,” he said in a statement outside parliament. “They can come to me the honourable and easy way, or a harder way.”
The Liberal leader, Jess Wilson, would not comment on the future of Deeming on Wednesday as the matter was “before the courts”.
