Victoria’s parliamentary speakers will decide whether Labor should be investigated over claims it misused public money during its successful election campaign last year.
The Herald Sun reported three unnamed Labor MPs and a senior party official said they were told to divert part of their taxpayer-funded allowances for electorate offices for party campaigning.
This move is said to have involved at least a dozen upper house MPs and several hundred thousand dollars. Daniel Andrews, Victoria’s premier, has denied the allegations and insisted the rules were followed.
Under Victorian parliament rules, publicly funded electorate staff are not supposed to be involved in party political activities.
Andrews told parliament that “staff pooling” arrangements have been used by all sides of politics for many years. The Liberal opposition insists the practice was scrapped in 2006.
The president of the upper house, Bruce Atkinson, said he and the lower house Speaker, Telmo Languiller, will look at the allegations to determine if an investigation is needed.
“The parliament does not fund positions to support the members’ political or party duties. Those rules have been in place for a long time,” said Matthew Guy, leader of the Victorian Liberals.
“Every other party follows them, why doesn’t the government?
“You cannot have a situation where the premier tried to pass off as a normal practice, a standard practice, a clear breaching of the rules.”
Guy said the opposition might refer the matter to Victoria’s corruption commission.
Andrews said: “I make no apology for a team of people, a tiny number of whom were employed to support their member of parliament.
“They were vastly outnumbered by thousands of volunteers who were not paid, working as hard as possible to get rid of one of the worst governments this state has ever seen.”
