The Andrews government holds power by one seat and will be hoping the police investigation won’t cut through to the public

At the crack of dawn on Thursday morning, police raided the homes of 17 former Victorian Labor party campaign staff. They were arrested and interviewed. No charges were laid. At least one person said he was strip-searched and placed in a holding cell.

“It wasn’t explained to me why I was being strip-searched,” says Jake Finnigan, a former Labor campaign organiser, whose decision to expose the party he had supported his entire life helped set off the police investigation. “I wouldn’t wish anyone else to go through that humiliation.”

With the state election less than four months away, Victoria police’s decision late last month to launch a criminal investigation into Labor’s misuse of taxpayers’ money to pay campaign staff – the “Red Shirts” affair – has sent the state’s already turbulent political landscape into a spin.

That was before anyone’s home was raided.

I wouldn’t wish anyone else to go through that humiliation Jake Finnigan

Some have already compared the spectacle of the raids with former FBI director James Comey’s renewed interest in Hillary Clinton’s email server on the eve of the 2016 US presidential election. It provoked a furious public statement from Labor headquarters on Thursday night. Privately, officials are even more angry.



“You normally see this type of operational conduct applied to drug dealers and bikie gangs,” one senior Victorian Labor source told Guardian Australia. The party’s lawyers had told police on Monday that it would facilitate interviews with organisers and MPs.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, whose ministers cancelled their news conferences on Thursday, declined to comment the next morning on the investigation, which is examining 21 of his own MPs, including several senior ministers.

Who are the Red Shirts?

The Red Shirts scandal – dubbed Rorts for Votes by the Herald Sun, which first exposed Labor’s misuse of taxpayers’ money in 2015 – centres on the party’s community action network.

Grassroots campaign organisers wearing red shirts were deployed to marginal seats as Labor sought to win government at the 2014 election.

The problem, as the Victorian ombudsman Deborah Glass found in her report released this year, was that the scheme broke parliamentary rules.

Glass found that 21 Labor MPs had signed off on wages to be paid to casual electorate officers, who were actually working as campaign organisers.

Following her report, Labor paid back about $380,000. Glass did not recommend further police investigation. No charges have been laid and no MPs have as yet been interviewed by the police.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Victorian opposition leader Matthew Guy: “Six ministers of the Andrews government needed to have handed in their resignations.” Photograph: Alex Murray/AAP

Finnigan joined the Labor campaign in March 2014 at the age of 20.

“On our first day of employment, I rocked up and we were told that we were employed two days a week as electorate officers by the parliament of Victoria, and three days a week by Victorian Labor as field organisers,” he told Guardian Australia.

“This is what has been known as the 60-40 split – where 60% of our time was paid for by Labor, 40% by the parliament.

“Someone piped up and asked if this was legal. [A senior party official] said words to the effect of, ‘It looks bad, looks like it’s straddling the line, but we believe it’s legal. Just don’t tell anyone how you’re paid if anyone asks.’”

Staff were handed pre-filled timesheets, and Finnigan says he signed a group lot from March to August.

After the story broke, Labor fought in the courts to have Glass blocked from investigating the scheme. But the party lost, and Glass’s scathing report was handed down in March.

The police reviewed the evidence Glass compiled. Late last month, they announced that the fraud squad would investigate whether any MPs, party officials or organisers had broken the law as part of the Red Shirts scheme.

“By the end of today, six ministers of the Andrews government needed to have handed in their resignations,” the opposition leader, Matthew Guy, told reporters soon after that.

“It is completely and utterly untenable that six ministers would continue in their positions, including the attorney general, the corrections minister, possibly the police minister under active police investigation.”

The ministers refused to resign. Days later, the government hit back.

The deputy premier, James Merlino, revealed that he had referred 18 Coalition MPs to the police, claiming he had evidence they had misused taxpayers’ money on electorate staff.

Merlino refused to release the evidence, and the opposition labelled the move a “desperate and laughable ploy”.

What could the political impact be?

The Andrews government holds power in Victoria by one seat. It has secured a series of social reforms – such as assisted-dying legislation and the state’s first safe-injecting room – but has been dogged politically by law and order problems. To survive, it needs to hold a swag of marginal seats in Melbourne’s outer suburbs.

The Labor headquarters is understood to be hopeful that the Red Shirts scandal, which is complex to explain, will not cut through to the public. That theory changes with the long shadow of a police investigation, they acknowledge. The belief is that if it were to drag on, it would do significant damage – not only to voters’ perceptions but also to party morale during a campaign.

Zareh Ghazarian, a lecturer in politics at Monash University, believes Labor remains the favourite to win in November at this stage.

Still, that could change if the investigation drags on. “This has the potential to derail the government’s overall campaign,” he said.

“Every time a minister or the premier fronts the media, we can expect a question relating to an ongoing investigation being asked. It will potentially be politically damaging for them as the days and weeks roll on.”

On the crossbench, which could have a key role after 23 November, there is a sense that the affair has tainted Victorian politics more broadly.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fiona Patten believes the practice of using electorate officers for campaigning work is widespread across major parties. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

“There’s no doubt that the Labor party was trying it on,” said Fiona Patten, the leader of the Reason party, who has worked closely with the government on social policy. “It is a somewhat grey area. [But] that does not excuse them at all.”

Patten believes the practice of using electorate officers for campaigning work is widespread across the major parties, a view shared by the whistleblower Finnigan.

Did the police go too far?

Finnigan worked on the 2014 campaigns of Lisa Neville and John Eren, who are now the police minister and sports minister, respectively.

He said the police told him on Thursday he might be charged on summons with making a false document.

He said he felt “pretty shithouse, to be honest” about that prospect. “It’s been nearly three years since I first spoke up,” he said. “Nothing’s really changed. The government’s still ducking and diving.”

He also wondered whether his former bosses would have their homes raided, or be subjected to a strip search.

The Melbourne lawyer Rob Stary, who is advising some of those arrested, told Guardian Australia the raids were “incomprehensible”. “Even in cases of serious crime, people make arrangements to attend on appointment,” he said.

Stary also said he had received “one report that a female was patted down, without a female police officer being present”. A police spokesman said the force would not provide a “running commentary” on the investigation.

In an earlier statement, Victoria Police said: “Media and the public can be reassured that proper process has, and will continue to be, followed throughout the course of the investigation.”

On Saturday, the shadow attorney general, John Pesutto, responded to media reports that Labor was considering a formal complaint into the raids by claiming Andrews was exerting political pressure on the police.

“This is straight up political interference,” he said.

It remains to be seen whether the police investigation could propel the Coalition into an election-winning lead. The last opinion poll conducted for Fairfax on 8 July showed Labor leading 51-49 on two-party terms.

Regardless, it will be a big headache as November approaches. Or as Patten puts it: “To possibly lose a premier for $380,000 was an incredibly stupid move.”

