Public hearings set for inquiry into Labor’s $388,000 rorts-for-votes scandal

SENIOR Labor MPs involved in the rorts-for-votes scheme during the last state election campaign will be publicly grilled at parliamentary hearings next week.

SENIOR Labor MPs involved in the rorts-for-votes scheme at the last state election will be questioned in public at parliamentary hearings.

The powerful Legislative Council Privileges Committee will hear from Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton and Ombudsman Deborah Glass.

Current Labor MPs to be questioned under oath during the sessions — which are likely to be televised — are Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings, Families Minister Jenny Mikakos, and backbenchers Adem Somyurek and Nazih Elasmar.

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Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings. Picture: Michael Dodge/Getty Images

The scheme’s architect, former MP John Lenders, will be forced to break his silence when he appears on Thursday.

The committee was set up after Ms Glass’s bombshell report which found that 21 current and former ALP MPs misused almost $388,000 of taxpayer money by employing staff who were then used for campaigning instead.

The public hearings will thrust the scandal back into the spotlight just four months before the state election.

More witnesses are likely to be added in coming days.

Public sessions have been are confirmed for at least Wednesday and Thursday.

Former campaign staff will give evidence in private.

Those campaigners led thousands of volunteers who wore distinctive red shirts when doorknocking voters in an operation Labor credited with helping it win the election.

John Lenders after the release of the Ombudsman investigation. Picture: David Crosling

Reporting on her investigation, which was triggered by revelations in the Herald Sun in 2015, Ms Glass described the scheme as an “artifice” that had been designed to prop up campaign finances.

The report was especially critical of Mr Lenders, a former state treasurer who in 2014 was Labor’s leader in the Upper House. He quit a taxpayer-funded role days before the report was released.

Witnesses have been mailed letters informing them that the inquiry would consider whether MPs who breached a code of conduct were in contempt of parliament and whether fines should be imposed.

The committee also has the power to recommend further sanctions for MPs, such as suspensions, which would have to be voted on by the Legislative Council.

Lower House MPs have argued they should not have to face an Upper House inquiry.

Some of the senior MPs named in Ms Glass’s report include Attorney-General Martin Pakula, Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio and Sports Minister John Eren.

Premier Daniel Andrews has not been listed to appear.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Photo: AAP

After the Ombudsman’s report was released in March, Mr Andrews said “I am sorry that this happened” and declared the ALP had paid back the $388,000 it misused.

Mr Andrews said he couldn’t recall if the funding arrangements had been discussed during campaign meetings in 2014.

“I think it highly unlikely that the parliament being a financier … was discussed by the Campaign Committee,” he said.

In 2015 he had claimed that “no rules were broken” and that he took “responsibility for each and every thing that happens under my leadership of the Labor Party”.

Ms Glass’s report said MPs who provided staff for campaigning in marginal seats “almost invariably benefited the election prospects of others” and that “21 Members of the 57th parliament breached the Members’ Guide”.

“The effect of their acquiescence was that public money was used for an inappropriate purpose,” the report says.

The Privileges Committee will be able to ask Ms Glass whether Mr Andrews or other senior MPs had responded to her requests for information.

They will also be able to ask Mr Ashton why police chose not to investigate the matter.

The committee includes three Labor MPs and three ­Coalition MPs.

Vote 1 Local Jobs MP James Purcell is chairman of the committee and Greens MP Nina Springle is the deputy.

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