The Victorian ombudsman's investigation into Labor's red shirts rort along with the legal saga surrounding it has cost taxpayers more than three times the amount that was misused.
The state's ombudsman Deborah Glass found Labor was wrong to spend $388,000 of taxpayer funding on election campaigning during the 2014 poll, and the party repaid that amount.
But in its annual report tabled to Parliament, the ombudsman revealed the cost of its investigation was nearly $800,000.
The actual investigation cost $744,000 while external legal fees — incurred while fighting for the investigation to go ahead — cost nearly $134,000.
The report noted that the Department of Premier and Cabinet provided separate funding for this investigation, which was outside the core work.
The new figures bring the total known cost of the investigation to $1.3 million, including $139,000 spent by the Government and $330,000 spent by the Legislative Council in arguments over whether the ombudsman had the power to conduct her investigation.
The State Opposition has seized on the figures, noting they do not include the cost to the government solicitor's office.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy used Question Time to push Premier Daniel Andrews to disclose the full costs.
"Having previously told this Parliament that these costs would be minimal and now finding the costs to be enormous, will you now reveal the total staff costs to the Victorian Government in attempting to cover up this theft, or will you continue to hide the true costs of this theft, and the costs incurred to cover it up," he said.
Mr Andrews responded that the ombudsman's investigation was triggered by a referral from the Upper House, where Coalition MPs voted for the investigation.
"There was a referral that was made by the other place with the full support of the Leader of the Opposition," Mr Andrews said.
"My answer to the Leader of the Opposition is 'did he really think the referral would come at no cost at all to the office of the ombudsman?'"
The red shirt rort, so-named because of the red t-shirts worn by field organisers who campaigned for Labor, is also being investigated by Victoria Police's fraud squad.
