Moira Deeming has revealed she is “facing bankruptcy” as the Liberal Party moves ahead with plans to disendorse her.
The Victorian Liberal Party’s state executive is set to meet on Friday night to vote on whether Ms Deeming should be dumped as the party’s candidate for the Western Metropolitan Region.
The motion is expected to be successful, despite requiring the support of 75 per cent of the governing body’s 19 members.
The Liberal Party is set to move against the embattled MP over her refusal to apologise for an assault allegation against colleague Matthew Guy.
CCTV footage appeared not to support the claim, and Victoria Police said in a statement it had determined there was “no offence detected”.
Ms Deeming had succeeded in delaying an earlier meeting by filing a court injunction, but she announced on Wednesday evening she was dropping the case.
She is likely to have to pay legal costs related to the case.
The MP is already facing financial difficulty due to a separate legal challenge against a loan that was meant to help former Liberal leader John Pesutto pay $2.3 million in legal costs he owed her.
“I am already facing bankruptcy for over $1.55 million in legal costs that a former Liberal leader was ordered by the Federal Court, to pay to me,” Ms Deeming told state executive party members, in an email seen by SkyNews.com.au.
“The Liberal Party intervened to pay on Pesutto’s behalf, saving both his endorsement and his financial future but those funds are unavailable to me because of the Supreme Court challenge to the legality of the ‘loan’.”
Ms Deeming won a long-running legal battle against Mr Pesutto in 2024, with a federal judge ordering the then Liberal leader to pay $315,000 in damages and $2.3 million in legal costs for defaming her as someone who “associates with Nazis”.
The Liberal Party stepped in to help Mr Pesutto pay the debt by facilitating the loan from its investment fund, saving him from bankruptcy and avoiding a risky by election for his seat of Hawthorn.
But Deeming strongly objected to the loan and a group of six senior Liberals allied to the MP filed a lawsuit claiming it violated the party’s constitution.
The $1.55 million has been held in a trust by Ms Deeming’s lawyers ever since, which has prevented her from repaying NSW-based property developer Hilton Grugeon, who helped bankrolled her legal case.
But Ms Deeming has now informed the party she will be withdrawing the funds.
This comes after lawyers for Mr Grugeon issued a request for the money to be paid back – a move that could be the start of bankruptcy proceedings.
In a legal quirk, Ms Deeming is actually a defendant alongside the Liberal Party in the legal challenge against the loan.
In her email to state executive members, the embattled MP said this was because the party had transferred the funds to her rather than to Mr Pesutto.
“I am the only defendant in the Supreme Court case who is not indemnified by the Party because I am not a member of the State Executive,” she said.
“If the Party had transferred the money into the bank account of the man who asked for it, he would be the defendant racking up legal bills instead of me.”
After the assault allegation, Mr Guy denied any wrongdoing and said Ms Deeming owed him a public apology for dragging his name and reputation through the mud.
But Ms Deeming defended her actions in a 12-page document sent to state executive members, claiming she had been instructed to file a police report and punishing her for complying with party policy would set a dangerous precedent.
The MP has also clarified that she only refused to apologise for “making a fraudulent bad faith police complaint and leaking this to defame him” – accusations she insists are false.
In her statement announcing she was dropping her legal bid to prevent her disendorsement, Ms Deeming said it had “achieved exactly what it was intended to achieve”.
“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 said.
“Now that I have provided the state executive with my statement and a mediation proposal, I have withdrawn the injunction.”