How Australian media and politicians colluded to destroy a woman’s reputation, by Jennifer Nabben.
Angie Jones is a 5’1” single mother of four children – three who have autism. She grew up in a working-class suburb in Melbourne with a younger brother who was bullied because he was mentally and physically disabled. Angie’s early experiences on picket lines alongside her father, a committed union member and Labor voter, baked left-wing activism into her bones.
Now, her good name is being shredded by a group of politicians whose stupidity and cowardice should become the stuff of Australian folk legend.
For Angie has been cast as the fall girl in the Deeming v Pesutto case currently being heard in Victoria’s Federal Court.
Angie is accused of being a ‘Nazi sympathiser and a transphobe’.
Oh, and another thing. Angie is Jewish.
For those unfamiliar with the background, on the 18th of March, 2023, Angie attended the Let Women Speak (LWS) rally in Melbourne along with Moira Deeming, a member of the Liberal Party. The rally—organized by women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen—was designed to give everyday women a voice against the loss of their rights caused by the introduction of gender ideology into legal frameworks and policy decisions.
During the rally, the Victorian police held back a group of trans rights activists yet somehow failed to stop another group from standing on the steps of Parliament and performing a Nazi salute.
The LWS rally provided political gold for Andrews, political risk for the Liberals and a disaster for the women wanting to highlight the erosion of women’s rights in Australia.
It was in this political culture that John Pesutto made a series of decisions which are now the subject of a defamation case brought by his MP Moira Deeming.
The day after the LWS event, the Liberal Party’s communications team pulled together a dossier of evidence against Kellie-Jay Keen and Angie Jones.
Ms. Chrysanthou, Moira Deeming’s barrister, has been meticulous in exposing the dossier’s contents as little more than a political hit job used to drive a narrative justifying any action taken against Moira Deeming.
Kellie-Jay Keen and Angie Jones threatened to sue Pesutto for defamation. He settled out of court, and as part of that settlement, Pesutto published the following statement on his website:
‘Kellie-Jay Keen and Angela Jones are passionate women’s rights activists with long histories of advocacy in Australia and internationally. I agree with them that genuine community concerns regarding women’s safety and access to single-sex spaces, services and sport warrant meaningful public discussion’.
By now, Pesutto was well aware that the charges against Jones and Keen were unsubstantiated, misleading and just plain false.
This did not stop him from proceeding to try to destroy Angie Jones’ reputation in court.
So why did the Victorian police fail to stop the far right from gatecrashing the rally? While we may never know the full answer, the prosecution did present a curious piece of evidence.
Sue Chrysanthou showed several text messages between the Liberal MP, David Southwick and the Shadow Minister for Police, Brad Battin. Southwick asked him to find out why the police had not prevented the gatecrashing of the rally – the Shadow Minister simply replied, ‘We need to be very careful of the Victorian police’.
The Deeming court case is ongoing, but to date, there has not been a single press article, TV or radio interview to ask Angie Jones or any other women at the event what they were there to speak about that day.
Angie Jones is a remarkable woman. I hope she comes through all this.