Victoria’s embattled Opposition leader John Pesutto has promised to pre-select more Indian candidates and boasted about his party’s diversity in a wide-ranging radio interview.
The Liberal Party boss will face a leadership challenge on Friday sparked by his humiliation defamation case loss against MP Moira Deeming, who he ousted and defamed by suggesting she had knowingly associated with neo-Nazis at a women’s rights rally in Melbourne in March last year.
Mr Pesutto, who holds left-wing positions on radical gender ideology and multiculturalism, gave a servile interview with SBS Punjabi earlier this month where he said that his party had a “very diverse membership that wasn’t reflected in the parliament”, but vowed that over time “that is going to change”.
Embattled Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto has promised to select more Indian candidates in a grovelling radio interview. pic.twitter.com/mKQNMXV6Uu
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) December 26, 2024
“I want to see more Indian, uh, people of Indian background, pre-selected, and will be pre-selected for seats in Victoria,” he said.
“We had a number of great candidates who I continue to work with around the state who are of Indian background, they’re just so aspirational, and inspirational. So I’m very conscious, and want to ensure, and my party does do this, that its membership is very diverse.
“We have an enormous part of our membership are people with Indian backgrounds … we will see more, particularly candidates of Indian background pre-selected”.
During the interview Mr Pesutto also denied being opposed to the controversial renaming last month of Melbourne’s Berwick Springs Lake to Guru Nanak Lake after the founder of Sikhism, saying the party was only “surprised” at the lack of consultation.
Liberal MP Brad Battin, who is one of two challengers for Mr Pesutto’s position along with his former ally Jess Wilson, led a protest at the lake after the renaming which sparked further controversy due to the attendance of Australian nationalists and led to the party consulting with a private security company.
He then claimed that “a number of senior representatives of the Sikh community” had told him that were totally satisfied with the lake which was chosen to be named after their religious leader because barbeques were held there, and said “everybody was caught by surprise” due to not being consulted.
“A number of Sikh leaders said me to me ‘that’s not the place that you would necessarily dedicate for that purpose’,” he said, even though Sikh community leaders were present at the renaming ceremony and said at the time they had been lobbying for it since 2018.
“I don’t want any of our listeners to think we’re opposed to these sorts of decisions being made, but they should be the product of consultation.”
Mr Pesutto’s leadership will be decided during a meeting on Friday where Ms Deeming’s readmission to the party will be voted on, following a similar motion last week which failed when Mr Pesutto used his tiebreaking vote to break a 14-all deadlock and block her return.
He is backed by Caulfield MP David Southwick, who called for peaceful freedom protesters to be jailed on the weekend , health spokesperson George Crozier, and shadow attorney-general Michael O’Brien.
Ms Wilson entered the contest on Thursday after a unity deal with Mr Battin to secure her as deputy leader fell apart, The Age reported.
If the party room votes for a leadership spill, Mr Pesutto will be forced to stand down and MPs will vote for either Mr Battin or Ms Wilson as leader.
Header image: Left, John Pesutto panders to Indians at a Diwali event (Facebook). Right, on radio this month (SBS Punjabi).
