In May last year, a select group of business leaders and philanthropists gathered in a Melbourne boardroom for an intimate dinner with a singular focus: saving the then Victorian Liberal leader, John Pesutto.
Organised by a party elder, this wasn’t your usual fundraiser. Money raised bypassed the party and went straight to Pesutto’s legal fund, ahead of a high-profile defamation trial brought by Moira Deeming, the Liberal MP he had pushed to expel from the party room.
The evening, according to sources there, was successful. Pesutto was in good spirts and persuasive, winning over even some from the party’s hard right. There have been several of these events in recent months, with Pesutto making small talk over sandwich lunches in corporate offices and dinners in private homes.
“I have to be candid,” Pesutto says, speaking from a corner of the Glenferrie hotel this week, nursing a lemon squash. “It’s not an easy thing and it’s not a pleasant thing to have to ask for support. As a parliamentarian, we all have to fundraise for our campaigns. Asking for financial support, that’s an entirely different thing.”
While Pesutto downplays the significance of these events, held “from time to time”, his supporters say they’re part of an “ambitious but achievable” plan to save his career. But their flurry of calls to some of Melbourne’s most powerful people this week and Pesutto’s full-media press – driven by the urgency of a 30 May deadline – has inflamed tensions within an already deeply divided party.
‘Let’s see how much you can raise’
Alarm bells rang in Melbourne’s donor class when the trial began in September. Just hours before one court appearance, Pesutto’s backers desperately called around for cash. They said the party wouldn’t cover Pesutto’s costs and he was in serious trouble.
It got worse. Pesutto went on to lose the case, with the federal court finding in December that he had repeatedly defamed Deeming by falsely implying she sympathised with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Shortly after, he lost the leadership.
Last week, Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3m in Deeming’s legal costs. The bill is on top of $300,000 in damages, $15,000 in interest and his own lawyers’ bill.
He now faces the real prospect of bankruptcy – an outcome that would disqualify him from parliament and trigger a costly byelection in his seat of Hawthorn, which many Liberals fear they’ll lose.
Last Friday, Pesutto’s well-connected backers went into overdrive. Former staffers, lobbyists, lawyers and party elders, including former Victorian premiers Jeff Kennett and Ted Baillieu, have been glued to their phones since.
Their task is to convince donors that Pesutto doesn’t deserve this, and more importantly, in their view, that the future of the Liberal party is at stake. They fear the party could be decimated if it doesn’t protect moderate leaders.
They have deliberately sought to appear informal – there’s no WhatsApp group, no in-person meetings. Instructions are given over the phone. Some are mindful of the party’s internal divisions and the well-financed defamation action that brought them all together.
But so far, it’s been a hard sell. Some donors question why Pesutto fought the case without securing funding, and resent being asked to cough up now. His detractors claim he was given several opportunities to settle, but declined, including at one point for as little as $70,000 and an apology.
In the Hawthorn pub, Pesutto says this is not the case, before pausing to take a call from a potential donor. His phone repeatedly interrupts him mid-sentence.
“I did everything I possibly could to settle this matter,” he says, citing numerous offers and two mediation hearings.
Deeming, however, disputes Pesutto’s account. “He would not have been ordered to pay my costs on an indemnity basis if that were true,” she tells Guardian Australia.
Some donors don’t want to pay until Pesutto’s team proves they can cover the whole $2.3m. Many recently donated to the federal Liberals, and are chastened by a bruising federal election.
“Some people are saying, ‘Let’s see how much money you can raise before we give you our money’,” said one source running the campaign.
“That’s why we have a strategy to give people confidence.”
Enter the GoFundMe strategy. Last Friday, “JP’s closest friends and supporters” launched the fundraising page to prevent the “worst-case scenario”. It has a $500,000 target and has raised about $150,000 so far.
According to supporters, they don’t expect to raise enough money to cover Pesutto’s entire bill. The fund was designed, in part, to build momentum and prove to donors that support for him exists “beyond the confines of the Herald Sun and Sky After Dark”, which have at times criticised his conduct.
The publicly listed donors tell their own story. According to Pesutto’s allies, they’re the kind of moderate voices the party has lost – and only he can bring back.
Among them are Rob Baillieu, son of former premier Ted and now an independent Boroondara councillor – who contributed $500 despite having ditched the party and volunteered for the teal MP for Kooyong, Monique Ryan, in her successful 2022 and 2025 campaigns. One-time Liberal Oliver Yates, the former head of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, who ran as an independent against the then Liberal treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, in 2019, also donated $500.
Even the founder of Climate 200, Simon Holmes à Court, chipped in $500 to support the former leader of a party he has actively campaigned against.
Some supporters see another benefit: because the GoFundMe page is managed by a friend of Pesutto’s, the Hawthorn MP could declare it as a “gift” from a single person. This would allow him to avoid naming individual contributors – many of whom have anonymously donated sums as large as $10,000.
Anthony Whealy KC, chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, calls this concerning.
“The public and media are entitled to know when and where money is coming from,” he says.
Whealy argues gifts – which are uncapped and only need to be disclosed every six months without revealing the amount – should be subject to the same rules as political donations, which are capped at $4,850 over four years and must be disclosed within 21 days if over $1,210.
“There is an obvious risk to public trust and integrity when large sums of money are received in this way,” he says.
But Pesutto says he has followed the rules, taking advice from parliament’s clerk and the Victorian Electoral Commission.
‘Can you blame us for being furious?’
Early this week, Pesutto launched a media blitz. After remaining silent for months, almost every outlet that wanted an interview got one – including an appearance on ABC’s Q+A on Monday.
His backers say this was all about ensuring the language used by those soliciting donations was matched by Pesutto himself. But these interviews were held on the eve of the state budget, infuriating Liberals close to the new leader, Brad Battin, who say he wasn’t informed.
“There’s a certain irony in the fact he criticised Moira for not being a team player before her expulsion – only to abandon the team himself on the eve of the budget,” one Liberal MP said.
Another Liberal MP said: “Budget week has been hijacked by wall-to-wall coverage of JP. Can you blame us for being furious?”
Pesutto’s supporters say he was approached by the ABC during the federal campaign and raised it with Battin, only to be told not to appear until after the election. They say he didn’t need further approval.
They also argue Battin could be doing more to support Pesutto, although those close to the new leader say he is in a difficult position, noting the federal court’s judgment and the fact Deeming has returned to the party room.
A spokesperson for Battin says “conversations between him and his colleagues on this matter will remain confidential”.
Both Pesutto’s supporters and rivals acknowledge this messy affair could be avoided if the Liberal party and its associated entity, the Cormack Foundation, would foot the bill for their former leader.
The state party’s multimillion-dollar investment vehicle is not allowed to provide financial assistance to individuals. But several Liberal sources argue it should urgently amend its constitution to support Pesutto. They are still hopeful.
Part of Pesutto’s pitch is that by helping to bail him out, the Cormack Foundation would avoid a risky byelection which could cost the party between $500,000 to $1m.
“If we can close the gap to what they would spend on an election, why not spend it now and be guaranteed the seat isn’t lost?” an ally said.
Other Liberal party sources worry a bailout by the Cormack Foundation could set a precedent that is financially unsustainable.
‘What does it say about the party?’
Three years ago, sitting in the same Hawthorn pub, Pesutto outlined a bold vision for changing the Liberal party as he was fighting to win back the seat he lost live on TV in 2018. He spoke of “broad-based values” and creating a more inclusive, climate-conscious party.
What would come to pass was starkly different.
While Pesutto recalls some early successes in his two-year tenure as opposition leader, including an improvement in the polls, the reality is he has since been relegated to the backbench where he faces the prospect of financial ruin and a political career prematurely ended by a costly fight with one of his own MPs.
Does he regret the stoush with Deeming? “Of course,” Pesutto says.
“It took me a while to get to that point, but as I look back now, it’s something I could have handled differently. I was early on in the leadership.”
His supporters, still glued to their phones, are determined to stave off bankruptcy. They remain hopeful that deals will be done at the final hour, saving their friend.
“What does it say about the party if someone like John can’t be saved?” asks one key backer.
