Andrew Bolt: Deeply concerning group think in Victoria, the state of law and disorder

With claims of a police cover-up involving Dan Andrews, it’s clear that things are far too clubby in Victoria between Labor, the police and elements of the judiciary — and the group-think under an authoritarian government is deeply concerning.

Something stinks in Victoria, and claims of a police cover-up of a car accident involving former Labor premier Daniel Andrews just adds to the stench.

Yes, it’s been too clubby between Labor, the police and – in my opinion – elements of the judiciary.

This goes beyond the latest evidence – the bombshell report by Ray Shuey, a former police assistant commissioner for traffic, who has cast more doubt on Andrews’ claims about that accident in 2013, when his wife, who he says was driving, hit 15-year-old cyclist Ryan Meuleman and put him in hospital.

But let’s start with that.

Andrews publicly claimed the accident was the boy’s fault, saying his wife had just turned into a small beachside street when Meuleman came down a path from the right “travelling at speed and hit our car at a perfect right angle very heavily”.

To underline it: “I want to make it clear – the cyclist hit our vehicle”.

Police bought it, almost instantly. Within hours they closed the case without even breath-testing Andrews or his wife.

But the evidence, gradually uncovered by the Herald Sun’s Michael Warner, seems to contradict Andrews’ story.

Why did Andrews’ wife give her maiden name to police, keeping the Andrews name out of it? Picture: Jake Nowakowski

First, pictures of the damage to his car show a smashed windscreen. It seems the cyclist hadn’t T-boned the car, but been T-boned himself.

That now seems the conclusion of the late Ray Shuey, who was asked by the Meuleman family to investigate the accident as they prepared legal action against their son’s former lawyers, a Labor-linked law firm which had advised Ryan not to sue Andrews and his wife but settle for $80,000 from the Transport Accident Commission.

Shuey said other things didn’t add up. Why did Andrews’ wife give her maiden name to police, keeping the Andrews name out of it? Why was the police investigation so hasty?

Shuey suggested the accident was most likely caused by a fast-moving car cutting the corner, smashing into Ryan on the wrong side of street just 27m from the intersection, and not stopping for another 19m.

The late Ray Shuey was asked by the Meuleman family to investigate the accident.

Shuey’s suspicions of an “overt cover-up to avoid implicating a political figure” have now been backed for former chief commissioner Kel Glare, who said he agreed with “every word”.

Glare said the botched police investigation couldn’t be explained by laziness or incompetence, given “every step that was required by the Victoria Police in their instructions was ignored, not followed”.

He was astonished that a police car racing to the accident was told to stand down by an officer who was actually further away, and who took six-and-a-half minutes before they got into their own car.

“There was a concerted effort to ensure there was no accountability for the collision,” Glare told me.

In response, Andrews dismissed the claims as “appalling conspiracy theories”, and insisted “we did nothing wrong”.

But as I said, this is just one example of what strikes me as an unhealthy Club Victoria.

On Tuesday, the Labor government appointed its latest judge, promoting Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd.

Excuse me?

Kerri Judd last year rejected the request of former High Court judge Geoffrey Nettle to prosecute police who’d unlawfully had a lawyer, Nicola Gobbo, snitch on her own clients.

It was Judd who last year rejected the request of former High Court judge Geoffrey Nettle to prosecute police who’d unlawfully had a lawyer, Nicola Gobbo, snitch on her own clients.

More astonishingly, it was Judd who prosecuted the clearly innocent Cardinal George Pell, even appearing before the High Court to insist it dismiss Pell’s appeal against his conviction for supposedly abusing two teenage boys at once in an open sacristy straight after Mass, even though one of the boys denied any assault.

Pell was so obviously innocent that the High Court judges, after embarrassing Judd, ruled seven to nil to free him. As I’d demonstrated, neither Pell nor his accuser could have been at the scene of the crime at the only time the room wasn’t busy.

Yet Andrews, a vicious and public Pell critic, wouldn’t accept his courts had jailed – and kept jailed – an innocent man for more than 400 days. He tweeted: “To these brave victim-survivors – we see you. We hear you.”

And here is Judd, now a judge herself.

Judd isn’t the only official behind the Pell miscarriage of justice who’s since been promoted by Labor. Shane Patton, who oversaw the police investigation, was later made chief commissioner, even though all 26 charges against Pell failed.

The charges were such nonsense that I wonder about the brains or agenda of police who believed them. Pell was even accused of raping a screaming boy in a crowded cinema, somehow without anyone noticing.

I’m not claiming there’s a conspiracy of the powerful in Victoria. But it seems to me there’s a go-along culture or group-think under an authoritarian Labor government, and that is deeply concerning.

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Deeply concerning group think in Victoria, the state of law and disorder