Liberal Party’s Renee Heath, Moria Deeming And One Nation’s Rikkie Tyrrell Elected To Victorian Parliament

Two Liberal candidates – one with links to a conservative anti-gay church, and another with anti-trans views, and One Nation’s first MP have been elected to the Upper House of the Victorian Parliament. 

Trigger Warning: This story discusses anti-LGBTQI comments, which might be distressing to some readers. For 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For Australia-wide LGBTQI peer support call QLife on 1800 184 527 or webchat.

The Victorian Election Commission on Wednesday announced the successful upper House MPs – Labor ended up with 15 seats, Coalition 14, Greens four, Legalise Cannabis two, and one seat each for Liberal Democrats, Animal Justice, Shooters, Labour DLP and One Nation.

While out gay Labor MP and Minister for Equality Harriet Shing was reelected to the upper House, two prominent allies of the LGBTQI community in the Victorian Parliament – Reason Party’s Fiona Patten and Animal Justice Party’s Andy Meddick – lost their reelection bid.

The new Liberal MPs elected to the upper House, include controversial candidates Renee Heath (Eastern Victoria) and Moira Deeming (Western Metropolitan). 

New MP’s Links To Conservative Church

Ahead of the state elections, questions were raised over the selection of Heath, a senior member of the conservative City Builders Church and daughter of Pastor Brian Heath. 

An investigation by Nine newspapers in November 2022, had unearthed allegations of the Church using “deliverance” prayers to rid its members of  “demonic” gay sexual orientation. 

Heath and her father’s lawyers denied they supported anti-gay conversion practices. The MP’s sister told the newspaper that Heath was “an agent for the church”, which is associated with Global Pentecostal churches. 

The media reports had led the then Victorian Liberal leader Matt Guy to issue a statement that Heath, who was a top candidate on the Liberal ticket and was sure to be elected, would not sit in the party room. The new Liberal leader John Pesutto however said he would reverse Heath’s party room ban. 

Moira Deeming Has A History Of Making Anti-LGBTQI Statements

Deeming, whose locked Twitter profile reads, ‘Biological sex is not a left v right issue’ was elected from the Western Metropolitan region. A former teacher, Deeming, in her response to a candidate survey by the anti-trans group LGB Australia, had said ‘no’ to trans women in women’s prisons and to affirming a child’s gender identity in school.  In YoutTube interviews, Deeming reportedly said that transgender laws were her “number one issue”. 

In her candidate statement, for the 2020 council elections, Deeming,  who was elected to the Melton City council,  claimed she stood for “traditional, liberal and family values, like equality before the law” and that she was against “radical policies” like storytimes for children narrated by Drag Queens and trans persons getting access to bathrooms that match their gender identity.

“Resources should be spent wisely, and only ever allocated based on need, not on identity markers like religion, race or sexuality… Focus on the whole community. I will never support rates being used to promote radical policies like banning Australia Day, Drag Queen Story Times for toddlers or letting biological males who identify as female, use female toilets and change rooms,” Deeming said in the 2020 document submitted to the VEC.

After she was elected to the council, Deeming attended online meetings of various councils across Victoria to ask if it was “legal for local government councils to provide sex-based targeted services and facilities separately to gender-identity-based targeted services and facilities. If not, why not?”

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Gets Its First Victorian MP

Deeming had also moved a successful motion in the Melton City Council to investigate whether trans women could be barred from women’s toilets and change rooms. The council later voted to shut down the investigation. 

In 2016, Deeming launched a campaign against Victoria’s Safe Schools program, saying she would rather be fired from her job than teach such “sleazy, unnecessary drivel” to her students.

One Nation’s first-ever Victorian MP Rikkie Tyrrell will take her seat in the Upper House. The party on its policy page says “there should be no room for Western, white, gender, guilt shaming in any classroom” and has opposed abortion rights, COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and gun control laws and questions climate change and global warming.