Moira Deeming says her expulsion from the Liberal Party has taken a “terrible” toll on her family, but her ousting won’t push her to abandon the party she loves.
The controversial MP was last week booted from the party, with Liberal MPs voting 19 to 11 to expel her for bringing it discredit.
Ms Deeming sparked controversy in March after attending a women’s rights rally where neo-Nazis crashed the rally and performed the “heil Hitler” salute.
She said on Monday that while she was disappointed about being expelled, it meant she could get back to work.
“I feel that it’s better to have the decision made rather than being in that limbo that I was in,” she told Peta Credlin in an interview on Sky News.
“It was just torture, not understanding what was happening to me or why things had taken all the turns that they were taking.”
Ms Deeming said she believed in the Liberal Party’s values and still thought it had the best political philosophy to help run a fair and balanced society.
“I’ve got no intentions of abandoning the party, and this decision was made by less than 20 people from Spring Street,” Ms Deeming said.
“I don’t believe that it reflects the will of the membership.”
Ms Deeming, who remains on the crossbench as an independent, said her expulsion had a terrible impact on her family.
Her children checked to see whether media were outside their home and were more worried when strangers walked by, she said.
“They start worrying about why they might not have been invited places (and) if it’s because people really believe that we’re white supremacists or something,” Ms Deeming said.
“Look, it’s just been absolutely awful, but I hope that now things will just be taken over by my lawyer, and I’ll be able to have a better routine and focus on something other than this issue for a while.”
She would leave legal action against Victorian Liberals leader John Pesutto in her lawyer’s hands, she said.
Ms Deeming said she was grateful for the support she had received, and reiterated her lack of tolerance for Nazi imagery, pointing to her being raised to view the Holocaust as the “benchmark of evil”.
The ousted MP said it needed to be made “far more clear exactly what type of women are allowed” in the Liberal Party, and she intended to campaign over issues including overcrowded schools.
After attending the rally in March Ms Deeming was suspended for nine months, but an expulsion motion was brought to the party room on Friday after she served Mr Pesutto with a defamation concerns notice.
