Labor campaign whistleblowers detail funding rorts and cover-up

UPDATE: A STATE parliamentary committee will investigate allegations that Labor rorted electorate office budgets to employ political campaign staff.

Follow up tax payers fund story. P1.

UPDATE: A STATE parliamentary committee will probe allegations that Labor rorted electorate office budgets to employ political campaign staff.

Speaker Telmo Languiller said he and Legislative Council president Bruce Atkinson, as presiding officers, had decided to refer the issue to the Parliamentary Audit Committee.

That committee is made up of the presiding officers, clerks of both houses of parliament, the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, and two independent members.

“These matters are pertinent, and incumbent on the presiding officers,” Mr Languiller told Parliament.

“The presiding officers will, in due course, inform the houses of the findings.”

It comes as State Liberal leader Matthew Guy gave the Government 24 hours to self-report before he mad an official complaint to IBAC regarding the election rort scandal.

“Send it to the corruption commission, send it to the police, or we will,” Mr Guy said outside Parliament today.

“I am giving the Premier 24 hours to recognise the significance.

“There is no vagary around any of the rules, the rules are clear. The Labor Party has knowingly broken those rules.

“You don’t ask anybody to shut up and not to talk if you have done nothing wrong.”

Mr Guy said the matters amounted to deception and fraud, which were serious offences.

Labor campaign whistleblowers have exposed the full extent of the rorts-for-votes scandal and have claimed they were told to lie about how they were paid.

But Premier Daniel Andrews’s right-hand man, Gavin Jennings, has accused whistleblower Labor staff of being “confused” about their roles during last year’s election campaign.

Mr Jennings, who is the government’s leader in the Legislative Council, admitted that doorknocking and phone banking by electorate officers would be against parliamentary rules.

LABOR TROOPS TOLD: ‘SHUT YOUR MOUTH’

JAMES CAMPBELL: SCANDAL DEMANDS INVESTIGATION

ALP staff hired last year as electorate officers two days a week have revealed to the Herald Sun they were used to do campaign work as part of the party’s “Community Action Network”.

Two staff who were employed to campaign for the party last year say they have twice been ordered by Labor leaders to “shut up’’ over their pay, which was financed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer cash.

Premier Daniel Andrews at Parliament House. Picture: Nicole Garmston

The two “field organisers’’ have also detailed how a team of more than two dozen was hired in March 2014 and part-paid with Parliament funds that were supposed to have been used for casual electorate officers.

The rort involved the team of “redshirts” being paid two days a week as electorate officers for specific MPs, when instead they worked solely on co-ordinated, party-directed campaigning.

Under parliamentary rules, electorate officers are banned from party campaigning.

The sensational allegations of rorting are likely to be probed by the parliament’s presiding officers.

When questioned directly as to whether phones banking - calling voters to spruik a political party - was within electorate officer rules, Mr Jennings said: “No”.

“Whilst they are being employed as part of a pooled arrangement, the answer is no,” he said.

“I don’t believe that that was what was happening.”

The Labor staffers’ revelations are at odds with Premier Andrews’s statements to the public and Parliament after the Herald Sun revealed the scheme this month.

Mr Andrews described the allegations as “simply wrong”.

“There are rules of course and the rules have been followed,” he said.

Mr Andrews refused to confirm or deny whether electorate staff had directly been used in campaigning and repeatedly dodged answering questions by talking about the pooling arrangements.

The Labor campaign machine was set up in March last year. Staff trained by key ALP figures included techniques for recruiting and campaigning.

Remarkably, Mr Jennings said the young Labor members must have misunderstood their roles.

“What is clearly understood is that they do electorate work on behalf of Members of Parliament,” he said.

“I think what we are seeing is some degree of confusion.

“If some part of their weekly undertaking (was) campaigning work, they may not have been clear in their mind the difference between what they were being paid for, at what moment of the day or week, compared to what they were doing campaigning outside of their employment arrangements.”

The whistleblower “redshirt” says he fears he was involved in something against the rules.

Mr Jennings said it was irrelevant if the campaign uniform of Labor staff, which included a red shirt, was worn by the paid staff.

“What, are we now asking questions about clothing standards?” he said.

“None of us are able to actually work out the day-to-day timing of when people put on a T-shirt.”

He also blamed confusing parliamentary rules.

“Sometimes, despite the best endeavours of how the rules are written they are not necessarily written in the best way that actually lead to ultimate clarity,” he said.

“We are happy for the presiding officers to have a look at this.”

Treasurer Tim Pallas denied any wrongdoing. “I don’t believe any inappropriate conduct has occurred,” he said.

Government spokesman Adam Sims said last night: “These allegations are untrue.’’

The whistleblowers say they did phone banking and doorknocking, and helped build an ALP database.

RORTS FOR VOTES IN LABOR ELECTION FUNDING SCANDAL

Several Lower House MPs, as well as most from the Upper House, were involved in handing over casual staff budgets for the campaign, the whistleblowers allege.

One has provided a statutory declaration detailing his allegations, as well as bank statements and a PAYG summary revealing that he was paid by Parliament.

But the whistleblower says he worked only as a party campaigner.

The source, whom the Herald Sun has not named to protect his identity, said he still loved his party but was concerned he had been involved in something against the rules.

It was only when field organisers attended a first training day in March 2014 that they learned they would work for Parliament as well as the ALP, and organisers were warned not to speak of the arrangement: “We were also told, if people ask, you are just employed by the party.”

A second whistleblower independently confirmed this: “They made it clear this was how we were being paid and don’t say anything about it.’’

Both said they were ordered by former treasurer John Lenders to keep quiet about the arrangement.

“John Lenders said he didn’t want people sniffing around,” one said.

Mr Sims said: “As previously stated, all work was conducted in line with parliamentary rules.’’

ALP state secretary Noah Carroll also denied any wrongdoing.

“While it can’t be said for the Liberal campaign, the 2014 ALP campaign satisfied all legal and probity requirements. Full stop,” he said.

The Herald Sun revealed on September 2 that three MPs and a senior party officials had broken ranks to expose how the ALP rorted the taxpayer to help fund an army of election campaign staff.

A defiant Mr Andrews said the ALP had done nothing wrong and he stood by the use of electorate office staff. “There are rules, and they have been followed,” he said.

But the whistleblowers say:

ON day one of training field organisers were ordered to sign timesheets for several months.

TWO days a week they were paid by Parliament, the other three through the ALP.

THE organisers were told not to approach Parliament if they had any problems.

THEY were paid around $35 an hour — equivalent to $63,000 a year.

Within hours of the Herald Sun approaching the Government earlier this month, organisers were told not to talk.

The Herald Sun has been told that MPs had raised major concerns over the scheme, and that at least one had refused to be a part of it.

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