Buck stops with Premier Daniel Andrews over Labor’s rorts for votes scheme
THE Ombudsman’s report into the Victorian ALP’s misuse of taxpayer-funds to help win the 2014 election is a devastating indictment on Labor. The buck stops with Dan Andrews.
Opinion
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THE buck stops with Dan Andrews. In fact, 388,000 bucks stop with the Premier.
Today’s Ombudsman’s report into the Victorian ALP’s misuse of taxpayer-funds to help win the 2014 election is a devastating indictment on Labor.
The Ombudsman has found the party the Premier leads is guilty of rorting almost $400,000 from the public to help it win the campaign. In short, Labor cheated taxpayers to win the election.
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The public funds were “inappropriately” used by Labor to help pay for “field organisers” who directed an army of grassroots campaigners dubbed the Red Shirts.
In the afterglow of his 2014 victory, Mr Andrews credited the Red Shirts with being instrumental in the win.
What’s more, in the days after the Herald Sun exposed the scandal in September 2015, the Premier not only denied rules had been broken but took personal responsibility for the Red Shirts program.
Mr Andrews said: “I take responsibility ... for each and every thing that occurs under my leadership of the Labor Party and under my leadership of the government. Might I say, without being too self-praising, that that’s a relatively novel view. There are not too many political leaders that are prepared to say that, but that’s the way I operate.”
The Premier cannot duck and weave his own words.
His party and his campaign stands condemned by an independent watchdog for ripping off the taxpayers to win the election that made him Premier.
This is no longer an allegation or a claim. It is a fact.
As revealed today, 21 Labor MPs participated in the scheme, signing dodgy parliamentary pay slips, to approve the funding of the field organisers.
Those MPs were enticed into the scheme by the mastermind of the payment scam, former Labor State treasurer John Lenders. It’s now clear why Mr Lenders’s abrupt resignation from his plum $90,000-a-year job as chairman of Vic Track was confirmed just two days ago. The Labor stalwart was not so much thrown under a bus, but a train.
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But that won’t be enough to stem the crisis. The ALP Campaign Committee, which included Mr Andrews, was involved in conceiving the program, Ms Glass found..
Did Mr Andrews know about the payment rort? Based on his 2015 quote it beggars belief that he was unaware of the rort.
He must answer this question today. Labor scrambled this morning to repay the $388,000.
But this was only because they were caught red-handed.
Shamefully, the government blew an estimated $1 million in public funds on challenges in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court trying to block the Ombudsman’s investigation. Labor must now repay that money too.
Then there is the $420,000 which the upper house spent fighting for the probe to go ahead.
This afternoon, the Premier must issue an apology to the public for the rort. But that’s not enough given the scale of the rort.
It is finally clear today why the Andrews Government fought so hard to stop the probe.
To give some perspective:
Former Federal speaker Bronwyn Bishop resigned after claiming $5227 on the taxpayer for a Melbourne-Geelong helicopter ride to attend a Liberal Party fundraiser.
Former Labor MP Telmo Languiller lost his job as lower house speaker and MP Don Nardella resigned after claiming $40,000 and about $110,000 respectively in the taxpayer-funded, secondary-residence allowance while living in seaside homes outside of their electorates.
Mr Andrews’ former corrections minister Steve Herbert was dumped from Cabinet and retired from Parliament after using his taxpayer-funded car to chauffeur his dogs Patch and Ted between his Parkdale and Trentham homes. He was forced to repay $192.80 in fuel costs and donated $1000 to a dog shelter.
Former Victorian Liberal MP Geoff Shaw was expelled from the party and suspended from Parliament for 11 days after misusing his taxpayer-funded car for his hardware business.
In June 2014, Daniel Andrews said of Mr Shaw’s rorting of $6838: “If anyone in this chamber wants to know why we are regarded as being for the public purse instead of the public good, if anyone in this chamber wants to know why we are held in such low regard by the hardworking people of this great state, then look no further than the conduct of the member for Frankston and the Premier’s protection of him.”
He was correct.
All these issues erode the confidence of the public in their elected representatives and those who hold high positions in party administrations.
But Ms Glass has concluded Labor was involved in a much larger scale and more sinister rort of the taxpayer. Ms Glass has detailed in her report the most systematic and cynical rorting of taxpayer cash for political gain in the history of the state.
Labor has been caught red handed. Paying back the $388,00 is not enough. The $1m legal cost must also be repaid.
One head has already rolled.
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