Andrew Bolt: Questions must be asked on Victoria Police’s ‘red shirts’ probe

There is a stark contrast in how Victoria Police persecuted the innocent George Pell, verses how softly it went on the guilty Labor Party over the “red shirts” rort.

Something stinks with Victoria Police. Contrast how it persecuted the innocent Cardinal George Pell with how it went soft on the guilty Labor Party, which stole $388,000 from taxpayers.

It’s a contrast made starker with claims now that a senior officer blocked requests by detectives to arrest Labor MPs.

With Pell, police command seemed to assume from the start he was a pedophile.

It publicly advertised for “victims” of abuse at Pell’s Melbourne cathedral to come forward, as if he was already deemed guilty.

It then charged Pell with 26 sex crimes against nine supposed victims – but the charges were so crazy that every one was eventually dropped or dismissed, but not before Pell spent 404 days in jail for crimes he could not have committed.

Some were so preposterous that I wonder why police ever filed charges. One claimed Pell anally raped a screaming boy in a busy theatre without anyone noticing, and as if Pell didn’t care if they did.

Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Police never apologised nor explained how they got this so wrong. But they were given cover by Premier Daniel Andrews, who tweeted “I believe you” to the “victims” even after the High Court ruled seven to zero that Pell was wrongly convicted.

Overseeing that Pell investigation was Shane Patton, since appointed Police Commissioner by Andrews.

Now the contrast.

In 2014, Victoria’s then Labor Opposition, led by Andrews, stole $388,000 by hiring staff supposedly to work for MPs, but making them work instead on Labor’s election campaign, wearing shirts in Labor red.

This was clearly wrong, if not necessarily illegal. The Ombudsman attacked this “artifice”, after the Herald Sun exposed it, and Labor eventually repaid the money – but not until the Andrews government wasted another $144,000 trying to stop the Ombudsman’s inquiry.

Yes, police did arrest 17 former Labor staffers and questioned them over allegedly making false documents. But they did not arrest, question or even name the 16 Labor MPs allegedly involved (not including Andrews), and all MPs refused to cooperate with police. The investigation was dropped, and no one was charged.

Now three whistleblowers claim that fraud squad detectives had urged their bosses to consider arresting and prosecuting the MPs, but were ordered not to, or even to photograph them.

Like I say, maybe those Labor MPs were innocent. But so was Pell – and that didn’t stop the police then, did it?

Not when the Premier wanted Pell thought guilty.