In audio of the meeting played to court, Deputy Liberal leader David Southwick said that a tweet from Melbourne woman Angela Jones, who helped organise the Let Women Speak rally, was seriously offensive to Jewish people.
The post said: “Nazis and women want to get rid of pedo filth, why don’t you?”
Deeming said in the meeting that the tweet was just condemning paedophilia.
Pesutto said this was offensive to the LGBTQ community, and that is how it would be read by the world at large.
“That is untenable,” Pesutto said. “That’s what she’s saying. They [the public] all think that now me, the leadership team, you, the party, hates the [LGBTQ] community — that’s how it’s going to be interpreted, whether any of us like it or not.”
Deeming said she saw it from Pesutto’s point of view because he didn’t know Jones. To her, Jones was talking about “fascist … trans rights activists”.
John Pesutto and his wife Betty arrive at the Federal Court on Tuesday.Credit: Con Chronis/AAP
Upper house leader of the opposition Georgie Crozier said the issue was very serious.
Deeming said in the recording that she wanted to go through all the evidence brought by the leadership team.
“As far as I can see, it’s a standing-for-women event,” she said.
Southwick said in the recording that Deeming actively took someone with known associations with white supremacists through the back of parliament. He says the neo-Nazis themselves said they were at the rally to act as a vanguard for it.
Southwick said he realised Deeming did not seek to attract these people but added that she needed to publicly and strongly distance herself immediately.
Deeming celebrated with Jones, anti-trans rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull and others on the night of the rally.
“For you to go and have a little champagne with them,” Southwick said.
While the recording was paused, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, told the court: “This is a shocking pile-on”.
Pesutto has separately and previously settled defamation claims brought by Jones and Keen-Minshull.