Matt Johnston: Plenty of questions on Labor rorts scandal but not many answers
MPs responses to the Labor red shirts rorts scandal have been predictable if not consistent, and questions remain unanswered, writes Matt Johnston.
Opinion
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In 2013, former Frankston MP Geoff Shaw was facing 23 charges related to his misuse of a taxpayer-funded car when the then-director of public prosecutions suddenly dropped the case.
The DPP thought there wasn’t a reasonable prospect of conviction.
At the time, the then-deputy opposition leader James Merlino said: “I’m, like most Victorians, shaking my head today.”
He said he was stunned that the case was dropped, especially after a “scathing Ombudsman’s report that found that Geoff Shaw rorted Victorian taxpayers”.
PROBE TARGETS RORTS-FOR-VOTES ARCHITECTS
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Labor’s most response to a scathing Ombudsman report into the misuse of entitlements — by 21 Labor MPs who hired electorate officers that campaigned full-time for the ALP — has been somewhat different.
So has been the reaction from the Coalition, which in 2013 urged everyone to remember that people, even Liberal MPs, were entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Putting the hypocrisy of both parties to one side, it was always going to take some convincing by police for the DPP to go down the Shaw path again.
Perhaps that is why it took the office so long to provide advice to the fraud and extortion squad as to the prospect of charges sticking.
The offences being considered related to creating false documents and obtaining property or financial advantage by deception, because MPs had signed off on electorate office work that was never done.
In 2014, those MPs recruited staff to campaign for the ALP and sent some of those staff members into other seats entirely, in order to boost the party’s election prospects.
Was that illegal?
On Thursday, Deputy Chief Commissioner Shane Patton was wheeled out to deliver the advice from the DPP.
Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton, who three hours earlier told ABC Melbourne an announcement might be a few days away, must have been busy.
Patton said 16 state MPs swept up in the Ombudsman’s probe were “exonerated” after a criminal investigation found insufficient evidence to charge them.
Patton said there was no doubt, after the Ombudsman’s report, that during a training week to be full-time field organisers for the ALP, the taxpayer-funded staff did no electorate office work. Still, they didn’t break any laws either.
The standard of proof required to charge people over what the Ombudsman called an “artifice” was too high, he said.
“We lacked the prerequisite points of proof in relation to intent, in relation to knowledge,” he said.
Given the points of proof needed, it was significant that Patton also said that police were going to continue to pursue two men who set up the scheme over offences such as creating false documents but also “matters such as conspiracy to defraud and associated offences”.
These men are former treasurer John Lenders and his former adviser Jadon Mintern.
That either suggests the DPP believes there is a real prospect of further action, or police are dragging out the investigation to avoid accusations of a whitewash.
Patton was left with the unenviable job of answering questions about a live investigation and revealed that the two men being targeted had not been “criminally interviewed”.
HE ALSO confirmed that none of the MPs who were asked to interview by police, was actually interviewed.
How then, was it decided that there was insufficient evidence to charge people?
There just wasn’t.
Some members of the public were quick to ask whether they could just ignore requests to interview like the MPs did.
Sure, if you want to get arrested. Although no MP was arrested, I suppose.
Not so lucky were the 18 field organisers — mostly young staff and party believers — who were hauled in at the crack of dawn.
One was strip searched.
Patton didn’t explain that decision, but made sure those present at the media conference understood that Premier Daniel Andrews, Deputy Premier James Merlino and Police Minister Lisa Neville were not sought for interview.
Which brings us back to how this complex artifice was devised in the first place.
Lenders has borne most of the responsibility for the rorts-for-votes scheme and is still being investigated by police.
He briefed field organisers about the 60:40 split in 2014 and told them they would be paid two days a week by the parliament.
Mintern, who works for Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes, had presented pre-filled timesheets for MPs and field organisers to sign.
While Lenders may bear responsibility for the scheme, most Labor MPs know Lenders wouldn’t have developed it in isolation.
What power did he have to devise, authorise, and implement a structure for paying dozens of Labor staff who were recruited by the party and used to run a well-oiled machine?
Lenders was an important Labor figure, but to suggest he operated in a bubble and wrote the rules himself is hard to swallow.
Whether or not we learn more about this whole sorry process, at least it may make MPs think twice about exploiting “grey areas” of parliamentary rules and about rorting the system.
Let’s hope they don’t think twice and still do it anyway.
Wouldn’t it be nice to go through an entire term of state or federal parliament without a blatant example of taxpayers being ripped off by those supposed to represent them?
Matt Johnston is state politics editor
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