He said he mentioned his concerns to Mr Andrews during a "very brief" and informal conversation while leaving the caucus room, but the premier directed him to take it up with John Lenders, the then upper house leader, Mr Somyurek told the privileges committee. Loading Mr Somyurek said he held out for three months before signing up after repeatedly being put under pressure by Mr Lenders, the scheme’s architect. He conceded he should have made an appointment with Mr Andrews to discuss his doubts about the scheme, instead of just mentioning them in passing. Mr Lenders “put the pressure on me to sign up”, Mr Somyurek told the committee.

“He mentioned that the Liberals were also doing it, he said everyone else was doing it and it was merely an extension of the pooling arrangements,” he said. Mr Lenders was good at applying pressure along the line that anyone who did not join the scheme was not being a team player, Mr Somyurek said. “I knew I was on touchy ground by resisting." The Labor right powerbroker’s evidence to the committee was in stark contrast to that given by his colleagues, all of whom said they believed at the time that they were not in breach of parliament’s rules. Mr Somyurek is a leader of the Labor right in Victoria and increasingly influential at a factional level, but was forced to resign as a minister in the early days of the Andrews government due to a complaint of harassment by an electorate officer.

Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Mr Andrews said at the time that the workplace harassment was unacceptable, although Mr Somyurek has always maintained the complaint was a baseless factional stitch-up. Ombudsman Deborah Glass’ March report into Labor’s 2014 staff pooling arrangements found the party breached parliament’s members’ guide and misused about $388,000 of public money. The money was used to pay casual electorate officers to work in the field three days a week, campaigning for Labor ahead of the election. Ms Glass said the scheme was an artifice and crossed the line, although she also found no MP involved had knowingly breached the rules.

Labor has since repaid the money. Appearing before the committee on Thursday, Mr Lenders rejected the Ombudsman’s finding that the party’s use of electorate officers was an “artifice” designed to misuse public funds. John Lenders told the committee he had sought advice from Parliamentary Services about the scheme. Credit:Daniel Pockett The former treasurer said he even went so far as to workshop pooling arrangements with the Department of Parliamentary Service to satisfy himself the 60:40 scheme was not in breach. But he said he accepted responsibility for his failure to take steps to ensure that MPs named in the Ombudsman’s report into the scheme delineated the time electorate officers spent doing campaign work and the time they spent doing electorate work.

Electorate work is covered by the parliamentary budget but campaign work is meant to be paid for by parties. Twenty-one MPs were found to have been involved. It also emerged in the inquiry that Mr Lenders signed a statutory declaration that Mr Andrews - who was opposition leader at the time - had a casual electorate officer employed in his Mulgrave office in 2014. Mr Lenders said he could not recall signing the statutory declaration and was puzzled by its existence. The Ombudsman found no evidence in her inquiry that Mr Andrews' office was involved.

Labor MP Jenny Mikakos, the Minister for Families and Children, said she did not feel pressured by Mr Lenders and trusted his judgment. Labor upper house MP Nazih Elasmar also gave evidence to the privileges committee and said he accepted Mr Lenders’ word that the scheme was above board, because Mr Lenders was his leader and he respected him. An officer employed casually in his office five days a week worked for two days a week in the office of Richard Wynne, the MP for Richmond. The inquiry has already hear Victoria Police is assessing the evidence again and will decide within days whether to open a criminal investigation.