AP

It looks likely that Moria Deeming is going to be expelled from the Liberal Party by the opposition leader, John Pesutto. Deeming’s ‘sin’ leading to her expulsion was simply helping to organise an event Let Women Speak! which was gated crashed by neo-Nazis. 

For an excellent review of the whole political fiasco see below:

But all this  also comes in the wake of world athletics governing body recently announcing a ban on transgender athletes. Ironically, Mr. Pesutto may very quickly find himself possibly out of a job, but on the wrong side of history.

And in a stunning act of hypocrisy though, the Victorian Liberals are continuing to exhort people on social media to support International Women’s Day with the hashtag #EmbraceEquity.

As an active member in good standing within the Presbyterian Church of Australia, support for Deeming has come from both state and national leaders. The Moderator General, Dr. Peter Barnes, published an open letter stating that the “accusation that she is a Neo-Nazi or has associations with such like is unfounded, indeed ludicrous, as you would know.” 

The letter from the Moderator General then went on to state, “In this whole episode, there has been an obvious lack of due process. You made haste to appear as her public judge, jury and executioner”, before then encouraging Mr. Pesutto to urgently “change direction”.  

Rev. Peter Phillips, the moderator for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, and Rev. Christopher Duke, Convener of the Victorian Church and Nation Committee, went even further. In another open letter to Mr. Pesutto, they wrote:

Our church shares the concerns expressed by Mrs Deeming and others at the Let Women Speak rally, that the safety of women and girls is being jeopardised through the erosion of women’s rights — in particular, the right of access to female-only toilets, change rooms, shelters and correctional facilities — through the aggressive promotion and adoption of transgender ideology in Victorian institutions and law.

It seems unwise to us in the extreme, and sets a deplorable precedent, that Mr Pesutto, and his three colleagues who co-signed his March 20 letter to Mrs Deeming, should be so intent on expelling a democratically-elected sitting member of parliament from the Victorian Liberal parliamentary party on the basis of (a) a tenuous connection between Mrs Deeming and Ms Keen’s supposed association with Nazism, (b) reliance upon questionable sources of information as evidence of Ms Keen’s supposed association with right wing extremists, including discredited allegations derived from Wikipedia, and (c) ill-conceived reasoning about Mrs Deeming’s response to the unexpected appearance of neo-Nazis at the Let Women Speak event. 

Mr Pesutto’s move shows alarming contempt for (a) the democratic processes through which Mrs Deeming won pre-selection to represent the Liberal Party and then her seat in the Legislative Council at the 2022 Victorian Elections, (b) Liberal Party members and the people of the Western Metropolitan Region who voted for her, (c) the concerns and rights of women and girls, which Mrs Deeming so eloquently and courageous defends, and (d) the freedom of speech which the Let Women Speak participants were exercising.

Mr Pesutto has justified his actions and claimed that he is a progressive Liberal and that he intends to represent all Victorians. He is wrong on both counts.

The open letter then goes on to further argue:

There is nothing remotely progressive about exposing women and girls to situations in which they are likely to feel embarrassed, unsafe, or exposed to risk of abuse. There is nothing remotely progressive about allowing the desires of the powerful — in this case, biological males who identify as women — to trump the rights of those who are vulnerable — in this case, women, and girls.

And in pandering to the radical left, by denying the reality and relevance of biology to the detriment of the safety of Victorian women and girls, he alienates and most certainly does not represent, the common-sense views of the majority of Victorian voters.

We urge Mr Pesutto and all Victorian state Liberal MPs to reconsider their intention to expel Mrs Deeming at the meeting of the party room on Monday, March 27, 2023. Failure to change course would represent a radical departure from the Liberal Party’s proclaimed values and completely alienate many thousands of Victorian voters already increasingly dissatisfied with the party’s direction. Surely many Liberal voters will reconsider their choices next election should this expulsion occur.

If Moria Deeming is expelled on Monday as expected, then it may well signal the beginning of the end for the Liberal Party in Victoria. It is also an indication that freedom of speech and freedom of association are in the final stages of death in this country. What’s more, it signals that Christian women not only no longer have a place in the Victorian Liberal Party, but that they are also not allowed to speak.