'Sheer hell': elder pleads for Liberals to save Pesutto
A senior Liberal figure has piled pressure on the party to come to the rescue of former state leader John Pesutto over his unpaid multimillion-dollar legal bill.
Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million in legal costs to first-term Victorian MP Moira Deeming after their high-stakes defamation battle.
The Federal Court found he defamed Mrs Deeming by implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a controversial Melbourne rally she attended in 2023.
Her lawyers issued a bankruptcy notice to the court on Monday, leaving Mr Pesutto 21 days to pay the debt, sign up to a payment arrangement or face bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy would force his exit from Victorian parliament, setting up an expensive by-election in his marginal state seat of Hawthorn in Melbourne's east.
With a final deadline approaching, former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett has written to the party's administrative committee to encourage it to foot the bill rather than offering a loan.
In the letter, seen by AAP, Mr Kennett said he believed the committee was about to meet to discuss the issue and listed 10 points for its consideration.
He labelled Mr Pesutto's situation "sheer hell" and stressed the matter could be quickly resolved if the party pays the outstanding claims against him.
"Regardless of what you think of John personally, what he said, the judgement, the consequences are much greater than an individual," he wrote.
"In principle and in practice. It is wrong to ask him to foot the bills, to bankrupt him and his family.
"Wrong to ask him to borrow money from the capital funds we might have at our disposal."
A GoFundMe campaign for Mr Pesutto's cause has raised more than $210,000.
Mr Kennett acknowledged the court decided some of Mr Pesutto's words were "inappropriate" and "defamatory", but argued the party should be meeting all of his costs as he was acting as its "agent" at the time.
He called for the administrative committee to act decisively, declaring it was not the "Liberal way" to leave Mr Pesutto to fend for himself.
"Remember money can always be replaced, a change of government cannot," Mr Kennett said.
"Please put personalities to one side and put the Party's interest front and centre."
Mrs Deeming, who was expelled from the Liberals' parliamentary ranks before returning in December after Mr Pesutto lost the leadership, declined to comment on Mr Kennett's intervention.
The upper house MP has previously foreshadowed she may pursue cost recovery through Mr Kennett and Mr Pesutto's other defamation defence donors if the Hawthorn MP declares bankruptcy.
Mr Pesutto said he was doing "everything possible" over the next weeks to repay what he owes Mrs Deeming.
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