Moira Deeming defamation trial - Thread 2 from Australia

[TheSandgroper]

Thread 1 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5167282-in-australia-moira-deeming-defamation-trial-now-on?page=40&reply=138525746

Tribunal Tweets Substack https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/moira-deeming-v-john-pesutto-a-case?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share. Thanks to @BezMills

Thanks to everyone on thread 1. I am pleased it generated such interest and conversations. I have learnt a lot from many very bright women.

Bach is based in the UK

https://www.9news.com.au/national/moira-deeming-defamation-trial-john-pesutto-matt-bach-exiled-mp-should-have-run-when-nazis-crashed-rally/61d9328e-3ce1-41f8-9b7c-e7244e3a1684

Bach is based in the UK

Sorry about that but no returns. We don’t want him back.

@Helleofabore Those almost-transcripts are great!

To get a better idea of just how irritating and smarmy and punchable this guy is, check out this video:

It doesn’t convey just how grating and maddening his voice is. This audio only video from about 7:00 gives a better idea. The first one has smoothed out his voice with some nice editing and mixing. Not this radio interview.

Some background on him. I’m honestly surprised that he has a wife.
www.morethanourchildhoods.org/stories/matthew-bach/

I get the impression that, like Starmer was with Rosie Duffield, Pesutto found it highly inconvenient and irritating that Deeming kept bringing women’s rights to the fore of her public statements.

Pesutto obviously wants to be seen as progressive and ‘nice’, and Deeming pointing out failures to support women’s rights undermines the image he wanted to project. I also get the impression that Pesutto, again like Starmer, would view a woman continuing to speak on the subject of women’s rights as disobedience, especially if she’s been publicly disagreed with by the party leader.

Some men just can’t tolerate women who disagree with them, especially if it’s in public - I can easily see Pesutto deciding to punish her for her stance. Party leaders dislike backbenchers with independence.

I'm shocked at the suggestion that when you see Nazis, the right and proper thing to do is to run away.

Probably only women have to run away. Women have to run away from everything. Say nothing, and certainly don’t contradict men such as John Pesutto or Matthew Bach who will intimate what women (who allegedly have a right to freedom of speech) can say before men have to stop them in their tracks. Freedom for the little women this far, and no more!

Honestly, the fear being expressed, of how other people they view as important (i.e. men) might judge them, by these male politicians in the witness box would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that they’re the type of politician who created this atmosphere of ‘guilt by association or physical location’ in the first place. They created a rod for their own backs. Honestly, I sometimes think that all modern public discussion is a big adult game of ‘Urgh, who touched the poo?’.

This whole issue about the Neo-nazi men and their sign is really quite interesting.

So, from the footage we have seen, those men were there to support the other group who was very clear that their theme for that day was to discuss safeguarding of children AND to highlight that they believe there has been suppression of names of child sex abuser in recent investigations.

If any one of Pesutto's team or the Australian media, watched the video and made the connection, the discussion around that banner would have at least been more accurate. However, the narrative that was pushed was that it was solely aimed at the transgender rights activists protesting the women's rally.

And yet, who exactly was making that connection? That the transgender community must be paedophiles because of the banner? Isn't that transphobic?

Yet, again, the Neo-nazis unwrapped their banner right behind another banner being held up about safeguarding children. But .... that seems to be conveniently ignored by so many.

I think the winners here are the Victorian Labour Party. The Victorian Liberal Party have been shown to be so keen to not have negative comments made about them that they have come across as being willing to expel MPs based on the leadership team's whims.

And that no matter what that MP might agree to, it will never be considered enough if that MP is female and ANY other male person thinks that they know better. The constant dismissal of Moira Deeming's words is stark.

But that action, of declaring that they personally know the motivation of others to be the opposite of what the person stating their motivation is, that takes some doing. And yet, haven't we seen that recently on MN ....?

(Oops, too slow typing - this is in answer to your comment at 14:16 Helle)

I don’t know how it’s come about but, somehow in our civic society, drawing attention to policies and legislation that reduce the effectiveness of safeguarding and that benefit paedophiles has become seen as being a worse thing to do than actually hurting or predating on children or making it easier for this to happen.

Even minor examples such as the word can’t be mentioned on YouTube or social media without automatic sanction - I can’t even get my spell checker to accept the word, it keeps redlining it as an error even when it’s spelled correctly 🤷‍♀️

I remember being troubled with the stridency and delivery.

he's so blind to his own entitlement, he doesn't realise he's mouthing completely bog standard MRA tropes.

Yes utopia.

No one can say the word. No one can say 'this action is allowing paedophile's a loophole' or anything like that without them being vilified themselves.

What a world, eh!

And even when a direct connection is made, things still cannot be said in case someone gets offended. When it should be red flags going up everywhere.

You are both so right. It's fucking ludicrous that this is where we are having all the evidence we have to date of just what lengths paedophiles will go to to access their victims, how they will take advantage of any and every loophole.

People who are uncomfortable with those hard truths being pointed out are the problem not the ones pointing out the hard truths.

Can anyone confirm for me that MD's speech at LWS was reading out an essay from a Muslim woman?

It was @Snowypeaks - you can watch it here from 1.10ish

https://www.youtube.com/live/9o47VZvDgAA?si=NC5QfcM5cteoCRzW

Thanks, Eresh

That link isn't working but no worries about reposting. I was just checking in the light of what Michael Bach had said in his testimony.

In his evidence today, Bach even confirmed that he instinctively rejected Deeming’s concerns about Safe Schools.

When asked by Crysanthou if he knew any of the worrying safeguarding-related histories and facts about some of the contributors to the SS programme Bach answered that he knew none of this information and that he hadn’t looked into any of it but he was still somehow quite sure that Deeming must be wrong to impute any kind of worrying motives to some of the contributors.

I mean, how can safeguarding work in the face of attitudes like Bach’s?! Safeguarding says we must (non judgementally) suspect all adults and not give anyone a free pass. That’s exactly what Deeming did; she investigated and now she has men like Bach and Pesutto declaring her to be impugning people by doing so.

Sometimes, I think society has really taken that sarcastic meme from The Simpsons about the Pastor’s wife (Won’t somebody think of the children?!) to heart too much. This society-wide sneering attitude towards women raising concerns about vulnerabilities and harms is frustrating and frustrates safeguarding. It also lets people think they’re off the hook for refusing to take seriously the concerns of certain types of women.

Yes, it's often women who spot the safeguarding fails. Frankly, to me, it's a toss up between men not believing them because of misogyny, and then not believing them because of a hidden agenda.

Well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Men who dismiss, or join in the vilification of women who raise safeguarding concerns are the enemy of safeguarding. The women who are vigilant around the safeguarding of children are enemies of paedophiles and others who wish to harm children.

Of course he didn’t look into any allegations. For someone who professed he cared ever so much about child safeguarding, he was remarkably incurious and unconcerned about whether there was any possible issue with the programme.

I think his point was that there is a very old LGB conspiracy smear that gay people are paedophiles, so he wrote it off as that.

It's part of the reason I don't think emotive language like "paedophile apologist" or "groomer" is helpful. It would be more impactful to describe the facts of what has happened without reverting to stereotypes and tropes. It turns people off on the occasions when there is substance underneath it.

Very bad safeguarding to write off someone for any reason. There should be no sacred caste exempt from scrutiny and accountability when it comes to the safety of children. Paedophiles used the veneer of respectability of being part of the church to access and abuse children in Ireland Likewise people just said that victims were just trying to smear the church when their abuse started being reported.

One would care more about a group/institution than the safety of children if one just jumped to ‘smear’ without looking into it.

Deeming laid out the factual information regarding the contributors to the SS programme and was still rejected and smeared.

Just because certain facts make people unhappy doesn’t mean we should smear those who are highlighting where we’ve failed to protect the vulnerable.

Women’s concerns are too often dismissed as hysteria or as being overly emotive; it’s not a counterargument, it’s a way of undermining, diminishing or deflecting.

From what I read, "paedophile apologists" was on the money. That part of Bach's testimony smacked of scolding Deeming for being "untoward about paedophiles".

Well no, that's not true is it.
Gay people were hounded and treated very badly for incorrect allegations of child abuse.
Women have been hounded and treated very badly for accusations of bigotry/transphobia.

The facts are more useful than emotive language. It can get into a "boy who cried wolf" scenario if people are relying on anti LGB tropes to make their case.