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Women’s rally link to Nazis is ‘nonsensical’, Deeming’s barrister says
In the latest major defamation battle, counsel for ousted Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming said it was “incomprehensible” for John Pesutto, party leader and lawyer, to find any link between her speech at a women’s rally and the neo-Nazi gatecrashers.
Naomi Neilson
In opening submissions, prominent defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, representing Deeming, said “no educated person with a functioning mind” would have found her client was a Nazi sympathiser because of her attendance at a Let Women Speak rally.
“The allegation my client was in any way blame-worthy for the conduct of these men ... only has to be thought about for a few seconds to be considered nonsensical,” Chrysanthou said.
Using the first part of her opening submissions, Chrysanthou set the scene of what her client alleged occurred on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne’s CBD last March, starting with the fact that multiple protest events were scheduled at the same time.
At one end of the steps was the Let Women Speak rally, an event co-planned by UK activist Kellie-Jay Keen and the Standing for Women organisation. They have claimed the push for transgender rights has silenced and discriminated against cisgender women.
On the other end was an anti-lockdown protest – which the court heard was “often there” – and a rally for protecting children. Separated by hordes of police were also groups of people protesting the rallies, including transgender rights activists.
Chrysanthou said a video of the rally will soon be played to the court so Justice David O’Callaghan can see the “mayhem”.
At around the time Keen started talking, Chrysanthou said a group of men wearing black walked towards the steps, interacted with the children’s rights rally, and then moved over to the women’s group.
“They’re not supporting the women who are trying to speak; they’re interfering with it. They’re doing the opposite of letting women speak, they’re stopping women from speaking,” Chrysanthou said.
“At least one of their causes is an offensive sign about paedophiles. They don’t have a sign that says ‘Let Women Speak’. One wouldn’t imagine ... that letting women speak is high up on their agenda.”
Deeming’s evidence was she and many of the other women allegedly did not see “any Nazi salutes” or know the men to be neo-Nazis until they were being escorted away by police officers.
Chrysanthou added by the time Deeming had her turn at the megaphone, the men had been gone for 25 minutes.
“They were awful men in the vicinity, and the only thing they did in relation to the rally was interfere by their own megaphone while the women were speaking. That is just so obvious to any person watching this footage, you don’t even need an affidavit,” she said.
“It is incomprehensible that any person, let alone a politician, let alone a lawyer, could assert that there was some sort of connection between those men and that rally of women, and in particular some sort of connection between those men and my client.”
In a 3AW interview that same month, Pesutto claimed Deeming had associations with protester organisers who had “known links with Nazis”. He allegedly made similar inferences over documents, press conferences, and media interviews about the rally.
The hearing continues.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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