The Victorian Liberal Party is moving to dump Moira Deeming as its lead upper house candidate for the Western Metropolitan Region after she refused to make an unqualified apology to former opposition leader Matthew Guy.
Manager of opposition business James Newbury said Ms Deeming had been asked to apologise to Mr Guy after police closed an investigation into her complaint and found no offence had been detected.
“A request was made for her to make an unqualified apology. She has refused to do that. Further action, therefore, needs to occur, and the party is working on that now,” Mr Newbury said.
The party’s state executive is now expected to consider revoking Ms Deeming’s preselection, a move that could remove her from the top position on the Liberal ticket for the Western Metropolitan Region before the November 28 Victorian election.
That top spot would ordinarily make re-election highly likely, making the expected move a dramatic escalation in the latest internal Liberal crisis.
Ms Deeming had alleged Mr Guy placed her in a “headlock” during a crowded Macedonian community event in Sunshine last month. She first raised the matter internally with the opposition leader’s office before taking the complaint to Victoria Police.
Police later dismissed the complaint after reviewing CCTV footage of the interaction, saying no offence had been detected.
The footage reportedly showed Mr Guy placing his hand on Ms Deeming’s back at the crowded venue.
Mr Guy has strongly denied the allegation and demanded a public apology, saying the accusation had damaged his reputation and placed pressure on his family. He has also threatened possible defamation action.
Ms Deeming has refused to apologise.
In a statement issued through her lawyer Tim Houweling, she rejected any suggestion that her complaint was falsely made and said she acted honestly and in good faith.
“She will not apologise for something she has not done,” Mr Houweling said.
Her lawyer said Ms Deeming accepted she had misunderstood the technical meaning of the term “headlock”, but maintained she had used it in good faith to describe what she believed had occurred.
Ms Deeming has also said her interpretation of the interaction was affected by trauma and has claimed she is being subjected to “pack bullying”.
The refusal has hardened attitudes inside the Liberal Party, including among some MPs who had previously been sympathetic to Ms Deeming.
Several MPs are now reported to no longer want her in the team, arguing the dispute has become an unnecessary distraction at a critical point before the election.
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson had been expected to meet Ms Deeming, but Mr Newbury said that meeting was no longer on the table given her refusal to apologise.
The episode is a major test of Ms Wilson’s leadership only months into her push to present the Coalition as a disciplined, election-ready alternative government.
The Liberals have been attempting to focus on the Allan government’s record on cost of living, debt, crime and public services. Instead, the opposition has again been dragged into an internal fight involving one of its own MPs.
Ms Deeming’s future in the Liberal Party has been a long-running source of division.
She was previously expelled from the parliamentary party room under former leader John Pesutto after attending a women’s rights rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis. She later won a defamation case against Mr Pesutto, and her return to the party was supposed to help close one of the most damaging chapters in recent Victorian Liberal history.
Her preselection for the Western Metropolitan Region was also controversial.
Earlier this year, she secured the top spot on the Liberal ticket after a chaotic preselection process in which other candidates withdrew, and earlier party decisions unravelled.
The latest move to remove her from the ticket could reopen old divisions at a time when the party is trying to present unity.
For Mr Guy, the issue is one of reputation and due process. He says he was wrongly accused and deserves an apology after police found no offence.
For Ms Deeming, the issue is being framed as the right of a person to make a complaint she says was sincere, even if police ultimately decide not to pursue charges.
That leaves the Liberal leadership trying to manage two politically sensitive principles: defending an MP cleared by police, while avoiding the appearance of punishing another MP for making a complaint.
But Ms Wilson’s team appears to have reached the view that Ms Deeming’s refusal to apologise has made her position untenable.
If the state executive removes her from the ticket, the decision will mark another explosive turn in a dispute that has again placed Liberal internal division at the centre of Victorian politics.
The state election is due on November 28, and the timing could hardly be worse for the opposition.
With Labor under pressure and the Coalition trying to regain momentum, the Deeming-Guy dispute risks becoming another reminder of the instability that has haunted the Victorian Liberals for years.
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