Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton says detectives are still waiting on ‘red shirts’ legal advice

Police chief Graham Ashton says fraud squad detectives are “in a holding pattern” as they consider whether to lay criminal charges over Labor’s “rorts-for-votes” scheme.

Police chief Graham Ashton says fraud squad detectives are “in a holding pattern” as they consider whether to lay criminal charges over Labor’s “rorts-for-votes” scheme.

Briefs of evidence were handed to the Office of Public Prosecutions in early November on the controversial “red shirts” affair.

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Mr Ashton told 3AW this morning that he would “love to have better news than I have”, but that the force was still waiting for legal advice from the OPP.

“I was keen to get it settled back in October, to be honest,” he said.

“We want the advice … Once we get that advice, we’ll be moving very quickly either way.”

“We won’t keep people in the dark, people will know.”

The police investigation was launched in the middle of last year after Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass found the scheme — which was first exposed by the Herald Sun in 2015 — had involved 21 Labor MPs including six ministers.

Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

They spent almost $388,000 of taxpayers’ money prior to the 2014 state election to part-pay casual electorate officers who also worked as Labor political campaigners.

Labor paid back the money before the fraud squad launched their investigation and arrested 17 current and former staffers in dawn raids.

Mr Ashton had initially suggested a decision on whether to lay charges would have been made prior to the November 24 state election.

He told 3AW this morning that police were “in the no-win business” with cases like this.

Asked whether Victoria Police was the right agency to be investigating the rorts-for-votes scheme, Mr Ashton appeared to question whether it was “a matter for the police” or another body.

He said police received referrals from political parties to investigate several different matters during the election campaign.

“I wouldn’t want the police to be used as a political device that way by anyone,” Mr Ashton said.

@tminear