Labor rorts-for-votes scheme mastermind snaps ahead of upper house inquiry appearance
THE mastermind of Labor’s rorts-for-votes scheme, due to face a parliamentary inquiry tomorrow to tell all, has delivered a bizarre spray in response to questions about his role and whether he was being made a scapegoat.
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LABOR faces a potentially damaging police probe into its $388,000 rorts-for-votes scandal, fewer than 130 days before the state election.
Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton confirmed on Wednesday that a decision on whether to launch a full investigation, following the Ombudsman’s report on the saga, was “imminent”. Investigators are examining fresh information for evidence of possible criminal offences.
Mr Ashton told a parliamentary inquiry into the “red shirts” scandal that police had canvassed the possibility of laying charges for offences including making and using a false document, false accounting, conspiracy to cheat and defraud, and misconduct in public office.
RORTS-FOR-VOTES INQUIRY DAY 1: POLICE PROBE ‘IMMINENT’
RORTS-FOR-VOTES MASTERMIND RETAINS CONTROL
TIME FOR LABOR MPS TO TELL ALL ON RORTS-FOR-VOTES SCANDAL
Labor veteran and former treasurer John Lenders — the mastermind of the rort — will have to break his silence on the scandal when he fronts the inquiry on Thursday.
On Wednesday, when the Herald Sun approached him, he launched a bizarre rant, saying: “… go to Saudi Arabia or something.”
Wednesday’s fresh blow for Premier Daniel Andrews follows Ombudsman Deborah Glass’s finding that 21 Labor MPs had broken a parliamentary members’ guide by recruiting casual electorate officers, partly paid for by taxpayers, and using them as field organisers — full-time election campaign staff.
Wednesday, Ms Glass told the Legislative Council’s Privileges Committee inquiry that Mr Andrews had rejected her attempts to interview him, arguing that as a Lower House MP he was not subject to an Upper House motion that she probe the misuse of funding.
Ms Glass said she did not accept the argument, but decided enough time and money had been wasted in court challenges to her authority, so she pressed ahead without his input.
In a letter to Ms Glass, Mr Andrews said: “I would suggest that the most productive course would be for John Lenders to respond to the matters raised in your correspondence.”
In 2015, Mr Andrews said he took responsibility for “each and every thing that occurs under my leadership of the Labor Party”.
Most of the blame for the scheme, revealed by the Herald Sun almost three years ago, was apportioned to Mr Lenders.
Ms Glass said the former state treasurer “carried the greatest responsibility” for the scheme she described as his “brainchild”.
The Ombudsman said she had “no evidence” that other MPs involved had set out to deceive the public.
Mr Lenders is likely to be grilled about who knew about the scheme and whether he acted entirely alone or discussed the complicated siphoning of funds from parliamentary budgets with other senior MPs or with Mr Andrews.
Three Labor MPs, Nazih Elasmar, Adem Somyurek and Jenny Mikakos, will also appear on Thursday.
A previous police “triage” of evidence in late 2015 and early 2016 led to advice being obtained from an unnamed senior barrister.
The QC advised that charges were unlikely to stick, and a brief was not sent to the Office of Public Prosecutions to consider.
Mr Ashton said he had not seen anything in the Ombudsman’s report that would necessarily change the earlier assessment, but Ms Glass may have evidence that needed to be checked.
She reported field organisers signed blank staff timesheets in advance, and that hours signed off by MPs did not “reflect the work actually performed”.
Committee member Mary Wooldridge, a Liberal, asked about interstate precedents in which rorting of timesheets had led to charges. Mr Ashton said he did not want to comment.
He said any formal investigation “could take a number of months”.
The state election will be held on November 24.
The parliamentary inquiry continues on Thursday.
‘GO TO SAUDI ARABIA’: LABOR’S KING RORTER SNAPS
THE mastermind of Labor’s rorts-for-votes scheme, due to face a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday to tell all, was in no mood to chat on Wednesday.
Approached by the Herald Sun to explain his role, and if he was being made a scapegoat, ALP veteran John Lenders delivered this bizarre spray in response:
“You are intruding on my property. I can’t believe … go to Saudi Arabia or something.”
Mr Lenders, who was leader of the Labor Party in the Legislative Council when he oversaw the scheme in 2014, was criticised by Ombudsman Deborah Glass again on Wednesday.
In her report, Ms Glass said that by recruiting taxpayer-funded staff to work on the ALP’s state election campaign, he had “crossed the line” between acceptable and unacceptable uses of public money, and should have known better.
On Wednesday, Ms Glass told a hearing of the Legislative Council’s Privileges Committee that the rort, which had diddled taxpayers out of almost $388,000, had been the former Victorian treasurer’s “brainchild”.
She said he had been warned against using casual staff in this way.
“Electorate officers” of 21 MPs were actually hired by the ALP to be full-time field organisers, marshalling thousands of red shirt — clad volunteers.
Sitting Legislative Council members Nazih Elasmar, Adem Somyurek, and Jenny Mikakos, the Families Minister, are also to be questioned. Between them and Mr Lenders, more than $102,000 — certified as being for electorate office work — went on field organisers hired as full-time political campaign staff.
Mr Somyurek has already made headlines this week in a public spat with United Firefighters Union boss Peter Marshall over factional dealings.
Ms Mikakos provided Ms Glass with a statutory declaration for the Ombudsman’s report into the rorting, which was tabled in March.
But Mr Elasmar and Mr Somyurek are both yet to tell their side of the story.
All MPs will now be aware that police are considering whether criminal charges could be laid.
During Wednesday’s hearing, committee member Jaclyn Symes, a Labor MP for Northern Victoria, asked Ms Glass if she thought MPs had set out to wilfully breach the parliamentary members’ guide.
“I have no evidence they did,” Ms Glass responded.
Ms Glass also said that there were gaps in her probe — some of them because Labor had asserted “exclusive cognisance” (the freedom of parliament to control its own affairs) — and “we don’t know what we don’t know”.
Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told the inquiry that Victoria Police’s original assessment of the case in 2015 and 2016 had decided against criminal charges after an unidentified Queen’s Counsel advised that it could be hard to make them stick.
Mr Ashton was quick to say that the name given to that assessment, Operation Peach, had been computer-generated.
A fresh Victoria Police assessment might look at how timesheets were used, and whether serious charges, such as making false documents or conspiring to cheat and defraud, might be considered.
It is unclear whether Victoria Police will now provide a brief to the Office of Public Prosecutions to consider.
Government MPs are despondent about the negative issues dominating the news agenda, just 128 days before the next state election.
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