Victoria Police initially decided not to take action, after finding no evidence of corruption, but launched a new investigation in 2018 following a petition from the opposition.
Months later, in August 2018, police arrested 17 former field organizers in morning raids three months before state elections.
Glass said the arrests appeared to create a public expectation that members of Parliament would also be arrested, and a public belief that they should have been treated leniently.
“But from my point of view, the high-profile arrests of 17 people some four years after the events for which they were being questioned, was a mistake,” he said.
No one was charged and no further arrests were made.
In response to a draft of the report, Victoria Police said investigators formed a reasonable belief that an indictable offense had been committed. “Five affidavits were prepared to be considered for prosecution as a result of the arrests.”
The Ombudsman had to reopen the investigation into the red shirts after the Legislative Council, headed by ousted labor officer Adem Somyurek and backed by the opposition, referred the scandal for investigation in February.
Adem Somyurek addresses the media at the Victorian Parliament last week. Credit: Paul Jeffers
Prime Minister Daniel Andrews, who has admitted he was aware staff were working on the campaign when he was opposition leader, was not one of the 23 MPs connected to the red shirts. Glass found no evidence that he was aware that the scheme was a ruse or played any role in facilitating it, despite Somyurek’s unsupported claims.
Asked Thursday about the ombudsman’s review, Andrews said he would let the report speak for itself.
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“These matters have been well studied,” he said.
Former Victorian treasurer John Lenders announced on Tuesday that he will step down from the Labor Party’s campaign committee in the run-up to the November 26 election.
In 2018, Deborah Glass, the ombudsman, said Lenders bore “the bulk of the blame” for the redshirt scheme.
He told The Age he did not want to be a distraction for the party ahead of the state election.
The government’s shadow spokeswoman for scrutiny, Louise Staley, criticized the prime minister on Thursday for standing by Lenders.
“When it comes to Daniel Andrews it’s always someone else’s fault, he’s in charge but he’s never held to account.”
Glass has launched a new review into the politicization of the public service, exposed in an Age investigation, which is not expected to finish this year.
An independent investigation, Operation Watts, commissioned by the Ombudsman and the independent broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission last week, described a “catalogue of unethical and inappropriate behaviour” within Victorian labour.
The prime minister, who apologized for the party’s rotten culture, said last week he would seek to establish a parliamentary ethics committee to enforce strengthened codes of conduct in response.
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Operation Watts followed an investigation by The Age and 60 Minutes that exposed Somyurek’s branch-stacking operation. The investigation obtained adverse findings against him and another former minister, Marlene Kairouz, but did not lead to criminal charges.
Mr Glass said Operation Watts and the 2018 Red Shirts report exposed the weaknesses of the winning parliamentary integrity model and the absence of an effective framework to enforce standards.
He recommended in 2018 that an investigative agency be set up and said Operation Watts showed how insufficient the reforms had been.
“Instead, we’ve seen more allegations of misuse of public funds,” Glass said.
“That these issues continue to surface in the public consciousness as an example of unpunished abuse is a product of many factors, including the police operation of 2018. But it is also a product of the unsatisfactory state of the law in relation to misuse. of public funds and an inadequate system to investigate and sanction MPs who break the rules.”
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