If you wonder why the Liberals in Australia can’t even win against a corrupt authoritarian like “Dictator Dan” Andrews, you only have to look at the quality of their leadership. If Matthew Guy was a shiver in search of a spine, John Pesutto is a cold dribble from a punctured catheter bag, looking for a leg to run down.
When Dan’s praetorian goons laughingly dubbed “Victoria Police” helpfully ushered a ragtag bunch of LARPing soyboys so that they could stand on the steps of Victoria’s parliament raising their stick-thin, pasty arms in a ludicrous Nazi salute, Pesutto nearly ruptured himself, running to the media. But did he castigate police for violating their own regulations in enabling the Nazis? Did he condemn the violent mob of far-left thugs spitting and assaulting women nearby?
No — Pesutto’s only concern was to slam one of his own MPs for having the temerity to read a letter from a Muslim constituent, expressing her worries for the erasure of women’s rights to safety.
It was a particularly gutless attempt to try and “get ahead of the story” rather than stand on principle. And all it’s achieved is to make Pesutto look as pathetic as he really is, and undermine, hopefully fatally, his own leadership.
Victorian Liberal Party leader John Pesutto has suggested suspended Liberal MP Moira Deeming could still be expelled from the party, after Ms Deeming denied his claim that she had condemned controversial British activist Kellie-Jay Keen.
Not content with attacking his own MP for nothing more than promoting women’s rights, Pesutto cravenly lied about the party meeting.
Announcing on Monday that Ms Deeming would be suspended from the party for nine months rather than being sacked, Mr Pesutto said she had reassured the party room of her condemnation of the anti-trans activist.
Keen is not, of course, “anti-trans”: she is pro-woman. But the media and political establishment have made it very clear: when it comes to a showdown between the rights of women and the so-called “rights” of mentally ill, violently misogynist men… ladies, you lose harder than a girl getting slammed into the footy field by a hulking male in a dress.
But Moira Deeming is made of much sterner stuff than the jelly-backed Pesutto, and she’s not letting him get away with brazen lies.
However, just hours later, Ms Deeming issued several tweets denying that she condemned Ms Keen and other activists.
“I never said those things anywhere,” Ms Deeming tweeted, going on to reassure activist Angi Jones: “Don’t worry, I never condemned you, or KD or KJ (Kellie-Jay Keen).”
In a hole that will surely claim his leadership, Pesutto elected to just keep on digging.
On Tuesday morning, Mr Pessuto told ABC News Breakfast: “If there are tweets going out that in any way contradict the assurances, the representations that Moira has provided to the party room, that would obviously be a serious matter for the partyroom but Moira has nine months to prove herself and it’s up to her.”
Mr Pesutto also told ABC’s 7.30 program on Monday evening: “I can say categorically that if the party room, when it does reconsider this matter … if it sees evidence that there is a difference between what we were assured in written and oral presentations … and what is being posted on social media, then, there will be consequences.”
This clueless idiot apparently can’t see what everyone else can: the only loser from all this is him. Even his own party is rapidly growing sick of his spineless antics.
Mr Pesutto compromised and only suspended Ms Deeming from the Liberal partyroom after an MPs’ revolt, triggered at least in part by the upper house conservative’s emotional appeal to colleagues. Liberal MPs said the meeting was “highly emotional” and “full of tears” when Ms Deeming recounted her past […]
“I note that many of you are confused and annoyed with me for persisting in talking about women’s rights, intersex rights, gay rights, parents’ rights and safeguards for women and children,” Ms Deeming reportedly told the partyroom.
The whole affair is only making Pesutto look worse and worse.
In a sharp rebuke of Mr Pesutto’s leadership, MPs said the partyroom atmosphere turned against his hardline position on Ms Deeming, although he still suspended her and removed her as Liberal whip in the upper house.
“He read the room. The room was against him,” a senior Liberal said.
The Australian
The only thing that’s keeping Pesutto in a job right now is that the Nationals — who in contrast to the Liberals, actually gained ground at the last election — are clearly terrified of yet another leadership spill in the Liberals dragging both Coalition partners down. But, sooner or later, the Nationals as well as the Liberals are going to have to decide just which side they stand with.
The far-left groomer lobby, or a centre-right woman trying to protect womens’ and girls’ right not to have to share their intimate spaces with predators in drag.
