Toby J Mullen

Former Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming has lost a bid to split her defamation case against state party leader John Pesutto, after a judge expressed his reluctance to have the court sort through her claim that publications by Pesutto carried 67 different defamatory imputations against her, including that she is a neo-Nazi. 

A judge has called off a pre-trial hearing to determine whether the new serious harm element in Australia’s defamation laws is satisfied in a case brought by a weight lifting coach, citing an “unfortunate turn of events”.