Labor MPs to face public grilling over rorting claims

SENIOR Labor MPs involved in the rorts-for-votes scheme at the last state election will be questioned in public at parliamentary hearings.

The Legislative Council privileges committee will hear from Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ash- ton and Ombudsman Deborah Glass. Current Labor MPs to be questioned under oath during the sessions — which are likely to be televised — are Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings, Families Minister Jenny Mikakos, and backbenchers Adem Somyurek and Nazih Elasmar.

The scheme’s architect, former MP John Lenders, will be forced to break his silence when he appears on Thursday.

The committee was set up after Ms Glass’s bombshell report that found 21 current and former ALP MPs misused almost $388,000 of taxpayer money by employing staff who were then used for campaigning instead.

The public hearings will thrust the scandal back into the spotlight just four months before the state election.

Public sessions have been confirmed for at least Wednesday and Thursday.

Former campaign staff will give evidence in private. Those campaigners led thousands of volunteers who wore distinctive red shirts when doorknocking voters in an operation Labor credited with helping it win the election.

Ms Glass described the scheme as an “artifice” that had been designed to prop up campaign finances.

The report was especially critical of Mr Lenders, a former state treasurer who in 2014 was Labor’s leader in the Upper House. He quit a taxpayerfunded role days before the report was released.

The committee may impose fines and also has the power to recommend further sanctions for MPs.

Some of the senior MPs named in Ms Glass’s report include Attorney-General Martin Pakula, Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio and Sports Minister John Eren.

Premier Daniel Andrews has not been listed to appear.