An outspoken Victorian Liberal MP is set to be expelled from the party over her involvement in an anti-transgender rally attended by neo-Nazis.
Moira Deeming spoke at the “Let Women Speak” event held by British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull outside Victorian parliament on Saturday.
The wording is, as always, misleading. The label “anti-trans” implies (as it’s intended to, of course) that the Let Women Speak event was in opposition to trans people when it’s the ideology we reject. This obfuscation makes it sound maybe possibly almost reasonable to kick someone out of the Liberal party for attending.
A group of neo-Nazis joined the anti-trans demonstrators and repeatedly performed the Nazi salute, sparking violent clashes as police kept counter protesters at bay.
The neo-Nazis didn’t so much “join” as “invade.” There’s a photo of one cop high-fiving one of the neo-Nazis. There’s no such photo of a gender-critical woman high-fiving a neo-Nazi.
Opposition leader John Pesutto said he met Ms Deeming on Sunday afternoon and discussed her involvement in organising, promoting and participating in a rally that had speakers and others publicly linked with far right-wing extremist groups, including neo-Nazi activists.
What does “publicly linked with” mean? Anything more than “trans activists say they’re all neo-Nazis!!”? KJK’s rallies are open to everyone, but they’re not neo-Nazi rallies.
“This is not an issue about free speech but a member of the parliamentary party associating with people whose views are abhorrent to my values, the values of the Liberal Party and the wider community,” Mr Pesutto said in a statement.
What values?
“The Liberal Party I joined and which I am now honoured to lead must strive to represent all Victorians.”
Except women.
“Regardless of religious faith, race, sexual preference and identity, Victorians everywhere should know that the Liberal Party is inclusive and can be a voice for them.”
Unless they’re women, especially feminist women.
Like so many people, this stupid man doesn’t grasp that you can’t be “inclusive” and banish all feminist women who defend women’s rights and spaces. You can’t be “inclusive” of men who steal women’s rights and identities and of women.
Mr Pesutto labelled the scenes of black-clad white supremacists marching along Spring Street an “abomination” and “affront” to values all Victorians should hold dear.
But their presence is not Moira Deeming’s fault.
And now Pesutto is punishing her for the fact that the police let the masked men invade the rally. It’s disgusting.
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11 responses to “If Nazis show up it’s your fault”
Someday, somewhere people who identify as journalists will be mortified that they did this. Or at least I hope some of them will be. Until then, I’d be happy if they just reported truthfully, and stopped clothing their obvious partisanship in a lofty, faux neutrality.
I think this can be translated as”being within earshot of.” or “being on the same continent as” or “breathing from the same atmosphere as” a neo-Nazi. You need a broad definition to get the shit to stick. At all.
How long before Mr. Pesutto has his own “Starmer moment” where he has to choose a side? He’s a ways off at the moment, but it’s coming. You can swim against public opinion for a while, but against reality, in the long run, you’re fucked.
Yeah, but how can he let such an opportunity to score easy points with stupid people pass him by? It’s not every day that one is handed a chance for such grand, performative, empty gesturing. And with press collusion Magnifique. Chef’s kiss.
Pesuto leads a party that was comprehensively thrashed at the last state election. Murdoch and his minions felled thousands of trees to convince Victorians that the government would be tossed out and Pesutto’s party (he wasn’t leader at the election) would return from (in)glorious exile. Despite Murdoch’s Minions and Millions, the Victorian government was returned with thumping support.
The Victorian government is big on Gender self-ID, and has its own problems with women. Men are jailed with women as long as they Self-ID as women.
I guess Pesutto thought he should imitate the government to gain more votes next time.
And in further news from the Wonderful Land of OZ:
The Australian Greens are quick to condemn and expel any member who expresses “transphobic” aka woman-supporting views. However, they are quite happy to keep as a member an acknowledged Nazi and paedophile sympathiser.
The punishment? A motion of censure, but sure, OK, stay inside the tent, at least you’re a woman hater like the rest of us.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victorian-greens-internal-war-over-trans-member-bianca-havens-vile-tweets/news-story/87903ecff32b76cdd45d4674fae83fb0
Good grief.
“Regardless of religious faith, race, sexual preference and identity, Victorians everywhere should know that the Liberal Party is inclusive and can be a voice for them.”
But not sex.
PinkNews also reported on this, a tweet and article. Tellingly, despite claiming the nazis were with the Let Women Speak rally, there is not a single photograph of them together. One of the articles used as a source by PinkNews even states “Star Observer is not claiming that either Keen or Deves are associated with the Neo-Nazi group.”
PinkNews has no such restraint. Headline: “Anti-trans Posie Parker supporters give Nazi salutes and chant ‘white power’”. Subheading: “Extremist supporters of British anti-trans campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, better known as Posie Parker, descended on the streets of Melbourne.” None of what follows even attempts to establish a link, the entire article is instead filled with non-sequiturs such as “The Victoria Police faced accusations of assaulting queer protesters by social media users, “well after Posie Parker left”.” and “A Victoria Police spokesperson told Star Observer that three people were arrested.”
But here is the quote from the Star Observer article that shows the whole thing to be a lie: “There were sporadic clashes between the groups as the police tried to keep them [from context: the nazis and everyone else] on separate sides.” Video footage shows the police maintained a gap between Let Women Speak and the pro-trans opposition; the nazis are seen walking with neither group through that gap.
PinkNews is lying as we have come to expect, but the shame of it is no other outlets are bothering to rebut.
P.S. I’m pretty sure the people arrested were either nazis or pro-trans protesters of Let Women Speak, but I can’t confirm this.
Oh and for any non-Australians, the Liberal party is the more conservative of our two major parties. The relatively small-l liberal / left / progressive major party is Labor. They also aren’t interested in women’s sex-based rights.
Oh and here’s the Star Observer article referenced a few times.
Also of note is that The Black Pampers only showed up in Melbourne. There were no Nazi of Nazi adjacent groups in any other city KJK visited.
The Black Pampers appear at any demo/rally in Melbourne. There are too few of them to mount their own rallies, so they leech off others to get their kicks. At least 2 of the Black Pampers at the Melbourne event are sons of serving Victorian Police Officers. Perhaps apples and trees are closer then we thought.
The Liberal Party in Victoria are voting on the expulsion of an MP who had the temerity to speak in the vicinity of the NAZIs that she didn’t even know were there
https://twitter.com/MoiraDeemingMP/status/1637691108280143873?t=tO2qkKOkU5JDevOlVjdGMg&s=19
Is her side of events.
I plead Monday. Ignore my post, check Deeming’s statement.