The leader of a group of Nazis who gate-crashed a feminist protest with a “destroy paedo freaks” banner and performed Hitler salutes has weighed in on a Liberal party defamation trial that erupted as a result.
Former Liberal MP Moira Deeming, who helped organise the Let Women Speak rally outside Victoria’s parliament in March 2023 is suing state party leader John Pesutto, claiming he suggested she was associated with the Nazi group.
Mr Pesutto suspended Ms Deeming from the party in the wake of the anti-gender extremism demonstration, and she was expelled less than two months later.
Ms Deeming’s ensuing defamation case began last Monday in the Federal Court where her lawyer Sue Chrysanthou SC told the court her client had been “tarred with the Nazi brush” by Mr Pesutto.
Mr Pesutto says he never called Ms Deeming a Nazi or similar, and is defending the claims on the grounds of honest opinion, contextual truth, public interest and qualified privilege.
Thomas Sewell, the leader of nationalist community group the European Australian Movement, told Noticer News it was strange he hadn’t been called as a witness, since he and his group have been mentioned dozens of times during the proceedings so far.
“Wouldn’t I be an expert witness to judge whether she’s a Nazi or not, considering I’m the Nazi in question she can’t associate with?” he asked, adding that it was a “fascinating” case with major political implications.
“If she wins, it proves that being around Nazis doesn’t make you a Nazi and so the right wing can use the precedent again the next time they get slightly more adjacent to us, on accident of course.”
He also spoke out about the trial in a post on social media on Saturday night, saying it was clear that the political elite were worried about the outcome.
“They don’t want Moira Deeming to win her defamation case, because it would mean being near/adjacent/even remotely associated with literal National Socialists is now slightly more acceptable,” he wrote.
Mr Sewell said that the trial so far had provided inside information on how the Liberal Party really works, and referred to a crisis meeting secretly recorded by Jewish MP David Southwick, who at one point said that a tweet by a women’s rights activist saying “Nazis and women want to get rid of paedo filth. Why don’t you?” was offensive to his community.
“What [the Liberal Party] fear most is genuine National Socialism. The real deal, the super far-right. The right wing have tried legitimately every possible useless strategy to try and regain control, and none of them have worked,” he wrote.
“They were removing a ‘democratically elected’ MP from their party, but the hidden recordings have them list their greatest fear, the most corrosive force to their power; these 21 National Socialists in black t-shirts and shorts throwing Roman salutes in public.”
Mr Sewell went on to say that Ms Deeming’s dismissal showed that Australia’s major parties ultimately decided whether MPs kept their seats or not, not the voters.
“The Liberal Party and the government in general think that you, the public, only exist to serve them and feed them votes. You are just a plantation that keeps their mechanism alive,” he wrote.
“Their fear of National Socialism is clear because it is a working ideology that is growing despite suppression, and continued suppression has made it more convinced of its right to make a new system.
“The attitude in the recordings is congruent with a group of people who have done nothing in parliament in recent years to help the Australian people, they haven’t really done anything other than enrich themselves except pass further laws to demonise and restrict the rights of White people.”
A video played to the court shows Mr Sewell and 20 other activists from the National Socialist Network assembling on the steps of Parliament House where they unfurled their “destroy paedo freaks” banner and he made a speech.
“It is our belief that these Communists, paedophiles and trannies have infiltrated every single institution in this country and across the West,” Mr Sewell said into a megaphone.
“They are not just coming for your children, they are coming for everyone’s. They cannot breed. They have castrated themselves chemically, psychologically and spiritually.
“We wish for the survival and preservation of our people. We’re not here to have a conversation with these people, we’re not here to make a compromise with these Communists, we’re not here to be nice and friendly.
“We are revolutionaries and we are here to destroy the sick and rotted society that has left us all out to dry.”
Mr Sewell then led chants of “blood and honour” and “hail victory” while the group behind him made the Roman salute, which has since been banned both in Victoria and nationwide.
The footage also shows a large group of far-left counter-protesters hurling missiles and abuse and making threats, forcing police to form a line to prevent them from attacking Mr Sewell and his group.
Ms Deeming told the court it was her first time seeing the footage, and said: “The first thing that came to my head was, ‘why weren’t they arrested?'”
She testified that during that rally she had been told that “men in black” had arrived.
“Someone told me there was a horrible sign. They said they’d tried to ask police to make them leave,” she said, but was told there was “nothing we could do” and so continued with the Let Women Speak rally.
Ms Deeming, who told the court that her uncle was a Holocaust survivor, also expressed her shock at the presence of Mr Sewell’s group at the rally during the meeting recorded by Mr Southwick.
“I was thinking, ‘oh my gosh, there are Nazis here, that’s terrible, but at least the police are taking them away’. That’s it. How was I supposed to know they were Nazis?” she said.
“I don’t know why I would be blamed for some random horrible people showing up.”
Right-wing activist group the National Socialist Network has since used the “destroy paedo freaks” slogan on banners at anti-child grooming protests in Albury and Adelaide.
Header image: Thomas Sewell and his group after gate-crashing the Let Women Speak rally, left, and Moira Deeming speaking at the rally, right.
