How come the Victorian government can be involved in electoral fraud and remain in office? The Governor should dismiss them and call a fresh election.

According to the Ombudsman, elected members of the government were party to electoral fraud of some $388000 and yet did not recommend that any charges be laid. My faith in the Ombudsman is now diminished.

Does not Victoria have an anti-corruption watchdog with the capacity to charge people and bring them to court? Not only that, but apparently the government spent a Million dollars trying to prevent any investigation.

They were alleged to have some shonky deal with the firemens union and they cannot stop the lawlessness of the African youths and now we find the government is bent as a dogs hind leg.

Hard to get much info as MSM in Victoria hide behind a paywall.
Something sure is rotten down that way.

The Premier seems to think that an apology does it. How about the crooked politicians pay the money back.

and the million trying to shut the ombudsman down

I notice that SteeleRedux and Toni Lavis are AWOL on this thread.

I reckon that this corruption should be referred to Victoria's ICAC. The Longer that Dan the backhand Man tries to whitewash this, the lower the chance that he will be re-elected.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Good to see I am missed.

I'm as sick of politicians rorting things as the next bloke and this stunk. But go read the ombudsman's report. It clearly says this was a grey area in the law but ultimately found that the money should be paid back, which it was.

However there was no recommendations that the matter be taken any further. If you accept his judgement on the first matter why don't you accept it on the second?

They didn't spend a million fighting this in the court, more like $130,000. It is still substantial and it is taxpayer's money so it should be paid back as well.

However the finding that the Ombudsman has the power to investigate members of the lower house should be welcomed by everyone. I certainly welcome it.

SR,

As I suspected you are an apologist for the corrupt Andrews government.

Firstly the law might be grey in this area, but the parliamentary guidelines are not, and while the ombudsman has not recommended criminal prosecution, primarily because it is not within her ambit, she also has not recommended that no further action be taken. Given labor's tenacious pursuit of Bronwyn Bishop and Barnaby Joyce for far lesser offenses, this is not going away.

As for the BS $139 000 that DA claims it cost the taxpayer for the year-long cover-up litigation, it assumes that the government in-house lawyers are a free resource and ignores the costs of the ombudsman's office etc. The real costs are probably well north of $1m.

"The government is understood to have spent up to $1m in court costs challenging the Ombudsman’s investigation, in addition to $420,000 spent by the Legislative Council and Department of Premier and Cabinet on external legal costs."

This smacks of the nearly $1bn that the incompetent labor government spent not to build a desperately needed road.