Key Victorian poll role for John Lenders, architect of ‘red shirts’ rort

Four years after being slammed by the integrity watchdog over the ‘red shirts’ rort, John Lenders remains on the Victorian ALP’s election campaign.

The architect of Labor’s “red shirts” rort remains on the Victorian ALP’s election campaign committee four years after the state’s integrity watchdog found he “crossed the line” in orchestrating the scheme that milked $388,000 from taxpayers.

John Lenders, a former state Labor treasurer, has attended multiple meetings of the party’s key election strategy body in recent years, according to leaked minutes of the meetings.

Victoria’s most influential state and federal political leaders – among them Premier Daniel Andrews, Senator Kim Carr and a number of ministers and union officials – attend the meetings or send lieutenants to represent them.

Despite being slammed by the Ombudsman for masterminding “red shirts” during the 2014 election, Mr Lenders’ committee membership means he will play a role in the ALP’s 2022 election strategy.

“I’ve got no comment at all on that, thank you,” he told The Weekend Australian.

Former Labor minister Adem Somyurek, being investigated by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission over the alleged misuse of electorate office staff for factional purposes, said Mr Lenders should be immediately axed from the committee.

“Given the Ombudsman’s findings about the conduct of John Lenders, he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the Labor Party, let alone sitting on a committee running election campaigns,” he said.

John Lenders

Adem Somyurek

“The fact Daniel Andrews is happy for the bloke who invented ‘red shirts’ to keep playing such an important role shows the Premier never really took the Ombudsman’s report seriously.”

Mr Somyurek queried why Mr Lenders was being “kept in the Labor fold” and said this reinforced the need for Ombudsman Deborah Glass to reopen the investigation.

“John Lenders knows too much that’s why they’ve kept him on,” he said.

Victorian ALP state secretary and campaign director Chris Ford defended Mr Lenders’ position on the committee, saying: “I don’t think there is anything inappropriate about it, about his involvement. He was cleared in a police investigation. I’m not uncomfortable with John still having a role.”

An Andrews government spokesperson declined to comment, saying “this is a matter for the party”.

Mr Lenders was excoriated by Ms Glass in her 2018 report into the “red shirts” scandal that involved hiring taxpayer-funded staff to work as Labor campaigners.

Ms Glass’s most serious adverse findings were focused on the Labor veteran who, she concluded, had “crossed the line” in misusing public resources for ALP campaigning.

Mr Lenders, she found, “carries the greatest share of culpability” in the scandal and as “a senior member of parliament, former minister and treasurer, and leader of the government in the Legislative Council, he should have known better”.

“He sought advice from DPS (the Department of Parliamentary Services) but did not take it, yet his involvement and personal stature would have been instrumental in giving credibility to the scheme,” she found.

“There is undoubtedly a blurred line between permissible and impermissible uses of parliamentary funds, … In seeking to maximise the use of resources available to the party for the 2014 campaign, Mr Lenders crossed this line.”

The Ombudsman observed in the 2018 report that Mr Lenders told a gathering of “red shirts” that if they were asked how they were being paid, they “should not tell anyone how you were paid. If anyone asks any questions, you are employed by the party full-time”.

In the wake of the findings, Mr Andrews apologised for the rort and the Victorian ALP repaid $388,000.

At the time, Mr Andrews said of Mr Lenders’ conduct: “I think Mr Lenders has indicated in his testimony, in his submissions to the Ombudsman, that with the benefit of hindsight he would have done things differently.”