The Labor government in Victoria is responding in characteristic fashion to multiple corruption investigations: by simply refusing to co-operate.
When the Andrews government was embroiled in the “Red Shirts” investigation over whether taxpayer funds had been illegally used to run an election campaign, 20 Labor MPs, including six ministers, simply “declined” to be interviewed by fraud squad detectives.
Having got away with it once, Daniel Andrews is trying it on again.
The Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party has been accused of refusing to co-operate with an anti-corruption commission investigating Labor MPs and staff misusing taxpayer funds for factional purposes […]
Counsel assisting, Chris Carr, SC, said lawyers for IBAC had requested documents from the Labor Party, including a statement addressing various issues, but had been rebuffed.
But IBAC may not be quite as easy a pushover as “Dictator Dan’s” pet police.
“If that voluntary process is not productive, it will be necessary for such evidence to be obtained through compulsory processes, including the summonsing of additional witnesses to give evidence at these hearings.”
The Age
But that’s only one of the multiple corruption and other investigations running against the Andrews government. One of the others is (another) inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine disaster, which led directly to thousands of covid-19 infections and more than 800 deaths.
Andrews has already survived an initial whitewash, which found that “no-one” bore responsibility for designing the scheme. He’s clearly determined to survive the current one (of several) by resorting to tried-and-true tactics.
By a strange coincidence, key documents from the hotel quarantine scheme have mysteriously failed to materialise. The request for “additional material” followed revelations that Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton had instructed his lawyers to withhold a key email. Premier Daniel Andrews was also asked to answer additional questions, following his appearance at the inquiry in September 2020.
Key documents missing from Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry will delay the handing down of a final report by more than six weeks.
In a statement the Board of Inquiry said it would deliver an interim report on November 6, which was when the final report was originally supposed to be handed down […] The hotel quarantine inquiry’s final report will now be delivered on Monday, December 21.
News.com.au
Well, isn’t that a coincidence? The report won’t be released until practically Christmas Eve when absolutely no one will be paying attention. This is the old tactic of releasing damaging reports on a Friday afternoon, on steroids.
Call it a Christmas miracle.
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