Ted Baillieu tape puts heat on Labor leader Daniel Andrews

DANIEL Andrews has suffered the worst day of his leadership after failing to identify who leaked a recording of an opponent.

VICTORIAN  Labor leader Daniel Andrews has suffered the worst day of his leadership and exposed the party to pre-election turmoil after failing to identify the ALP figure who criminally leaked an unauthorised recorded conversation of a political ­opponent.

Mr Andrews savaged Fairfax Media’s unauthorised recording of four political figures but failed to detail who in Labor was ­responsible for leaking the recording to the Liberal Party to damage the Coalition.

The recording of former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu was made by Sunday Age reporter Farrah Tomazin despite being off the record. It emerged yesterday that at least three other similar conversations were recorded by the ­reporter, all of which were ­accessed by the ALP after Tomazin’s dictaphone was accidentally left behind at the May ALP Victorian conference.

Fairfax has accused Labor of stealing the recorder, which was later destroyed by the ALP because of the “career ending’’ private conversations the party said were recorded improperly.

Police are aware of intimate details regarding the recording, further exposing Mr Andrews to a potential pre-election disaster if the identity of the ALP ­offender who leaked it to the Liberal Party becomes known. “The leader has created a monster,’’ an internal Andrews critic said.

Mr Andrews’s inability to ­explain who handed the recording to the Liberals to ­reveal the Baillieu conversation has stunned members of caucus, and one MP said his performance on radio explaining it was woeful. “We got a performance that would make Putin proud,’’ the MP said. ALP assistant secretary Kosmos Samaras yesterday said he had listened to the recording to find the device’s owner when it was found after the conference.

He said he was stunned to find that the ­recorder’s owner had secretly ­recorded an off-the-record discussion with him.

“I was shocked and angry that I had been recorded without my knowledge. Had it been put to me that I was being recorded I would have ended any such conversation,’’ he said. “After some consideration I decided that given the device contained unauthorised private conversations it was not appropriate to retain or disseminate the device. I destroyed it.’’

The Age’s editor-in-chief Andrew Holden defended the reporter’s recording of off-the-record discussions. The recording of Mr Baillieu was heard by Mr Samaras, ALP secretary Noah Carroll and Mr Andrews’s chief-of-staff John McLindon. An unknown Labor individual is believed to have spruiked the recording to a media outlet but dumped the plan after the ALP had received legal advice.