MPs say misused taxpayer resources helped Labor win 2014 Victorian election

LATEST: THE Speaker and President of the Victorian Parliament will decide whether claims Labor rorted electorate funding to pay for election campaigning should be probed further.

Very rowdy during Question time at Parliment. Follow up tax payers fund story. P1. Picture: Nicole Garmston

UPDATE: THE Speaker and President of the Victorian Parliament will decide whether claims Labor rorted electorate funding to pay for election campaigning should be probed further.

During a heated Question Time, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy asked Premier Daniel Andrews how the scheme, which saw taxpayer-funded electorate officers used for wider Labor campaigns, was within parliamentary guidelines.

Mr Andrews repeatedly said it was within the rules, but did not say how.

WATCH QUESTION TIME LIVE HERE

Some of Mr Andrews’s colleagues have raised concerns about the way taxpayer funds were used.

When asked whether the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission could investigate, Mr Andrews said this would be up to the parliament’s presiding officers.

He said Legislative Assembly Speaker Telmo Languiller and Legislative Council President Bruce Atkinson would decide if any action was necessary — but stressed he believed Labor had done nothing wrong.

“There are rules, and they have been followed,” he said.

Three Liberal MPs were thrown out of the chamber during Question Time for holding up the front page of today’s Herald Sun, which revealed several Labor MPs feared electorate allowances had been rorted.

In the report, three Labor MPs and a senior party figure sensationally broke ranks to expose how the ALP rorted the taxpayer to help with the 2014 Victorian election.

Daniel Andrews during Question Time. Picture: Nicole Garmston

The MPs say they and colleagues were told to divert part of their taxpayer-funded budgets, intended for electorate officers, to pay for campaign organisers instead.

The initiative, said to involve at least a dozen Upper House MPs and be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, breaches parliamentary rules that electorate staff mustn’t “support the member’s political or party duties”.

One MP said of Mr Andrews, “He is responsible for this”.

“There was no reason to doubt the advice coming from the leader’s office … You trust it’s correct and it’s done in a proper way,” he said.

DANIEL ANDREWS: I MAKE NO APOLOGY

Mr Andrews today said Labor was acting within the parliamentary rules by pooling taxpayer-funded electorate officers for use in election campaigns.

The Premier said he took responsibility for the scheme, and insisted it was above board despite being unable to say how.

“I make no apology for a team of people — a tiny number of whom were employed to support their member of parliament, they were vastly outnumbered by an army of volunteers who were not paid — working as hard as possible to get rid of one of the worst governments this state has ever seen,” he said.

“All sides of politics have done it and the rules have been followed.

“They have been approved by presiding officers, both Labor and Liberal.”

HOW ANDREWS’ ARMY WAS BANKROLLED

JAMES CAMPBELL: SCANDAL MUST BE INVESTIGATED

Mr Andrews wouldn’t say where the current pool of electorate officers worked for Labor.

“They don’t work out of the party’s headquarters,” he said.

“They will work out of a number of different offices to support members of the parliamentary Labor Party.”

Mr Andrews said he was responsible for the scheme.

“I take responsibility for each and every thing that happens under my leadership of the Labor Party and my leadership of the government,” he said.

Scroll down for the full list of questions the Herald Sun put to Daniel Andrews at 4.28pm yesterday

MATTHEW GUY: THE RULES ARE CLEAR

Mr Guy called for an investigation into the allegations.

“Let me just say one thing to the Premier, he says his party have done nothing wrong, if that is the case I challenge him to (produce) just a single piece of paper that says using electorate officer resources in campaigning in roles either at Labor’s headquarters or for the Community Action Network is admissible under the current guidelines,” he said.

“He will not be able to produce that.

“The Labor Party clearly has explaining to do.

“It would obviously be preferable for the speaker and the president to look at this matter.”

His comments come after three upper house MPs dodged questions about whether their electoral officers were involved in the Community Action Network, during the Legislative Council question time.

Gavin Jennings said no but conceded he had entered staff into a pooling arrangement.

Agriculture minister Jaala Pulford admitted her staff were also in the pooling arrangement and said the caucus secretary directed where the workers were to be used.

Earlier when asked whether the rort was a “hanging offence”, Mr Guy responded: “Daniel Andrews tried to have Geoff Shaw sacked from parliament for his wordings ‘rorting $1500 worth of parliamentary entitlements’.

“We are talking here potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars rorted from the same parliamentary entitlement fund by the Labor Party.

“This is many ministers and MPs who have been employing staff — knowingly employing staff — who do not work in their offices, but in fact work for Labor’s secretariat.

“Don’t take my word for it — take the word of three Labor MPs and one of their senior party officers who have acted as whistleblowers in the (Herald Sun) today.”

Mr Guy said the rules were clear.

“The parliament does not fund positions to support the members’ political or party duties. Those rules have been in place for a long time.

“I say again those rules are clear. Every other party follows them, why doesn’t the government?”

“There is going to be some sort of inquiry into this — whether it is parliamentary or external.

“You cannot have a situation where the Premier tried to pass off as a normal practice, a standard practice, a clear breaching of the rules.

“Whether it’s external and it goes to the Corruption Commission, we’ll take advice this morning.

“Whether it goes to the police we will have a look at that as well.

“There certainly needs to be an audit by the presiding officers of Parliament as to where these staff are working.”

SOMYUREK DENIES LEAKING ALLEGATIONS

Victoria’s former small business minister now Labor backbencher Adem Somyurek denied leaking the allegations to the media. He said he didn’t know if his staff were involved in the parliamentary pooling.

“They are very serious allegations and I guess there will be an investigation and we’ll know later,” Mr Somyurek said.

Mr Somyurek’s frontbench exit in July, after an internal investigation into claims he had bullied his former chief of staff, opened a deep factional wound in the party.

Senior government minister Martin Pakula defended Labor and said the MPs who broke ranks could be disenchanted with the party.

“You’ll always find one or two people who are unhappy for whatever the reason might be,” he told 3AW.

“I don’t know who those individuals are and I’m not going to speculate about their identity.”

Daniel Andrews with supporters at Federation Square.

In some cases the MPs, who declined to be named, told the Herald Sun they did not even meet the staff they employed for at least eight months, on the taxpayer.

The campaigners were instead co-ordinating Labor’s Community Action Network — a pioneering marginal seats blitz based on grassroots campaigns run by Barack Obama in the United States.

A volunteer who worked as a member of the CAN said some MPs were troubled by the scheme.

“There were clearly some aspects of the field campaign and its structure that were not kosher and did not sit well,” the volunteer said.

“When they asked questions Field Organisers were told, ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you’.”

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Mr Andrews has said Labor couldn’t have won without the 5500-volunteer network, overseen by about 35 of the paid field organisers.

There is understood to be simmering tension within caucus over the use of taxpayer-funded resources.

To beef up the Community Action Network, the MPs say that in March 2014, most Upper House MPs were ordered by the then Opposition leader to employ casual electorate officers.

These electorate officers were then deployed as field organisers, also referred to as field researchers.

The job of the field organisers was to train and manage the army of Labor volunteers who doorknocked and telephoned voters in the lead up to last November’s poll.

Sources say the Upper House blitz was overseen by a staffer working in the office of former treasurer John Lenders.

The Herald Sun has seen emails from the staffer and obtained an employment form sent to one MP, for an electorate officer who subsequently worked as a field organiser.

Daniel Andrews visits campaign volunteers in the last the days before the election.

In correspondence to a member, the MP is told to hire a “field researcher/organiser’’.

In other correspondence an MP is told the forms have been prepared for signing and will need to be lodged every two weeks in order for the field organiser to be paid.

The staffer said yesterday he had no recollection of organising the staff or writing the emails.

Whistleblowers claim that under the March initiative, 17 Upper House MPs were ordered to sacrifice two shifts a week for Labor’s election campaign.

It is not known how many agreed. But one MP said, “everyone was contributing”.

“We were told put them on the books as a casual and to say they worked the extra hours,” the MP said.

An MP said the leadership had told them “the Liberal Party had similar arrangements in place”.

Another Labor MP said that while the practice of pooling staff for “research and so on” for the Opposition leader’s office had been going on for years the extra request for staff was different and may not have met parliamentary guidelines.

A senior Labor figure familiar with the scheme said the party leadership had been warned against using parliamentary staff to supplement the Community Action Network.

The questions the Herald Sun put to Daniel Andrews at 4.28pm yesterday:

1. Have any Labor MPs hired taxpayer-funded “electorate officers’’ who actually worked on the Community Action Network campaign and were referred to in the party as either field researchers or field organisers? How many MPs?

2. Did a request for most or all Upper House MPs to do this come from Jadon Mintern in early March, who was working with John Lenders, as has been claimed by MPs and as evidence suggests?

3. Did Daniel Andrews direct MPs to do this, as has been claimed by MPs?

4. Did Stephen Donnelly (ALP Assistant State Secretary) oversee the initiative to use people hired as electorate officers, to work as campaign field organisers, as has been claimed?

5. Were MPs sent the complete employment forms for supposed electorate officers, which they were told to sign, declaring they were working for them?

6. Is it true that some MPs never met the staff who were supposedly working in their electorate offices?

7. What is Labor’s response to the assertion that this practice was clearly in breach of Parliament’s rules, which state (regarding electorate officers): ``These positions are provided to support the Member in their parliamentary and electorate duties. The Parliament does not fund positions to support the Member’s political or party duties.’’

8. What does Labor say to the assertion that each MP who has engaged in this practice has breached the rules of Parliament?

9. What does Labor say to the assertion that each MP who has engaged in this practice, and those supporting them, have potentially committed a fraud and/or deception offence?

10. Has the leadership been asked by MPs to clarify its assertions during the campaign that this practice was within the rules, and if so, what has the leadership told MPs?

11. How much taxpayer money was spent on Labor campaigners under this initiative?

12. What does Labor say to the assertion that up to $350,000 was spent out of Upper House MPs’ budgets to held fund campaign coordinators from March 2014?

13. What does Labor say to the assertion that the scale of the scheme could extend beyond $1 million, as MPs have suggested further electorate officer hours sacrificed by MPs from both the Upper and Lower House in a pooling scenario were then diverted to pay for the field organisers/researchers?

14. Should IBAC investigate?

The response from Adam Sims, spokesman for the Premier, at 6.32pm:

Please use the following, attributed to a spokesman for the Government:

Pooling staff is a common and efficient way for political parties to combine resources to support MPs and conduct Parliamentary Party Business.

We are proud of the work done by all our staff to defeat one of the worst governments in Victorian history.

All activity undertaken by the ALP’s pool staff was in keeping with parliamentary rules.

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