The Age: Moira Deeming dumped: Victorian MP loses Liberal Party preselection battle
Michael Barnett OAM
Moira Deeming dumped: MP loses Liberal preselection battle
March 29, 2026 — 3:18pm
Controversial Victorian parliamentarian Moira Deeming has been dumped from the Liberal Party’s upper house ticket in a hard-fought preselection ballot that threatens to upend her political career.
But the loss will further fuel speculation she could defect to another party such as One Nation or the Libertarians, though she has not indicated she would. Both minor parties have left the option open.
Moira Deeming and husband Andrew quickly left party headquarters on Sunday.Luis Enrique AscuiDozens of Liberal members met at party headquarters on Collins Street on Sunday to preselect the party’s candidates for the Western Metropolitan Region at the upcoming November election.
Deeming – who wore Liberal blue – faced a two-pronged challenge for the safe No.1 position.
Dinesh Gourisetty arrives at Liberal Party HQ before being preselected.Rachel EddieSmall businessman Dinesh Gourisetty, a prominent figure in Melbourne’s Indian community, beat both Deeming and her fellow MP Trung Luu in a vote yet to be endorsed by the party’s state executive. Two sources said Gourisetty received 39 votes, Deeming 26 and Luu three. The final breakdown is not publicly released, and other media are reporting a slightly different tally.
Luu retained the second position.
Deeming did not nominate for the second position or wait for that result. She immediately walked out of party headquarters after her loss about 3pm with her husband, Andrew, and declined to comment.
As attendees began to disperse, Gourisetty supporters embraced outside party headquarters. “Just what the doctor ordered,” one said.
Deeming was repeatedly falsely defamed as a Nazi sympathiser by former Liberal leader John Pesutto in her first months in parliament, a saga that has dogged the party for three years.
One of Deeming’s supporters told waiting journalists that he hoped she defects to One Nation and unloaded on Pesutto, who was not present for Sunday’s vote.
The result means Deeming’s time in parliament will come to an end at the November election unless she moves to a winning position in another party.
One Nation state president Warren Pickering said the party had a great working relationship with Deeming, and was open to discussions.
“Moira’s a woman of great substance,” Pickering said. “We’d hate to see Moira find herself in the same political wilderness as the Liberal Party has chosen to explore.
“We’re open to talk to people of great substance and conviction.”
Libertarian MP David Limbrick, who worked closely with Deeming during her time on the crossbench, said she had been treated dreadfully by the Liberal Party and would need time to consider her options.
“The Libertarians are ruling nothing out or in at this stage.”
Liberals were already speculating on Sunday afternoon that Deeming could quit the parliamentary team this week, having missed recent party room meetings. One party member, unable to speak publicly due to party rules, hoped this was a “line in the sand” and an opportunity to reset.
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson had intervened in an attempt to spare Deeming, having worked the phones for days, to the frustration of some party members.
Liberals expect to easily re-elect two MPs in the region at the November election, particularly given Labor’s waning popularity after three terms. But the spectre of One Nation could challenge that confidence. The Liberal Party was relegated to just one upper house MP in the Western Metropolitan Region in the 2018 “Danslide”.
Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million towards Deeming’s Federal Court legal costs, and relied on a party-approved $1.55 million loan to avoid bankruptcy.
Six breakout members of the party’s state executive are challenging the legitimacy of that loan through the Supreme Court.
Gourisetty had donated to Pesutto’s legal fund.
Wyndham Council in 2019 fined Gourisetty’s old Hoppers Crossing restaurant $25,000 after rat faeces, grease, oil and grime were found in the kitchen and storage.
“I am seeking your support for preselection because we have a real opportunity to rebuild and strengthen the Liberal presence across Melbourne’s west. For more than 15 years I have served our party at the grassroots level, supporting candidates, organising volunteers, raising funds and helping strengthen our presence across the region,” Gourisetty wrote in his candidate brochure.
“Families in the west deserve the same level of opportunity and services enjoyed by communities in other parts of Melbourne.”
The party stripped voting rights from four delegates in the days leading up to the preselection, using justifications under the party’s constitution such as that they worked for MPs. Sources unable to speak publicly believed the unusual attention to the constitution was designed to ensure the outcomes of such preselections could withstand scrutiny.
The legitimacy of the branch meetings in which delegates were elected had also faced challenges.
Deeming had the support of conservative former prime minister Tony Abbott and his former chief of staff turned Sky host, Peta Credlin.
Abbott said the first-term MP had “shown remarkable magnanimity, given all that’s happened to her”.
“I can’t think of anyone who’s had to endure so much ‘friendly fire’, yet remained a staunch Liberal, and any preselector who doesn’t want to keep her in the state parliamentary party room I reckon has a death wish,” the former prime minister wrote in an endorsement for Deeming.
Credlin’s letter of recommendation said beating the old Labor government will require “warriors” like Deeming.
“I have met a lot of people in public life since I first joined the Victorian division some 30 years ago, but I have never met a more tenacious, more resilient and more fearless person than Moira,” Credlin wrote.
“Few of us could have withstood the things she has, and yet not only has she emerged victorious and stronger for it, but throughout her period of persecution, she never gave up on her commitment to the Liberal cause and that says everything about her character.”
Wilson has written endorsements for all her MPs who have requested them during the upper house preselection season and attended each vote.
Former national Labor president-turned-Liberal Nyunggai Warren Mundine also endorsed her candidacy, writing that western suburbs people “couldn’t care less about the latest woke ideologies”.
Leader of the opposition in the upper house Bev McArthur comfortably withstood a challenge on Saturday to hold the No.1 ticket spot in the Western Victoria region. Former MP Graham Watt was elected to the second position.
Rachel Eddie is a Victorian state political reporter for The Age. Contact her at rachel...@theage.com.au, rachel...@protonmail.com, or via Signal at @RachelEddie.99Connect via X or email.