Damien Mantach told police no one in the Liberal party raised red flags about his false invoices as he used holes in its financial system to siphon off money

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The former state director of the Victorian Liberals told police he didn’t try to hide his crude $1.5m party scam – it’s just that no one bothered to check.

Damien Mantach said he used holes “big enough to drive a bus through” in the party’s financial system to siphon off campaign money to fund his lifestyle and then-wife’s cafe.

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Mantach told police no one in the party that trades on its financial reputation ever raised red flags about his dodgy invoices.

“Political parties don’t operate like a commercial business,” Mantach told police in November in court documents released on Thursday.

“For people who come from a business background, they find that very, very strange and they sometimes would think that we should be applying better business practices.

“And the answer is, ‘Yes, you should be’, because obviously you can see there were holes in this big enough to drive a bus through.”

Mantach pleaded guilty in the Melbourne magistrates court on Wednesday to 44 counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception.

He used 53 fake invoices to add extra costs onto printing, and charged for research and online advertising he never ordered, in a scam he told police was neither sophisticated nor covert.

Liberals say Mantach was in a good position to scam the party – the finance manager wasn’t authorised to see confidential polling, while other key party figures didn’t see the day-to-day accounts.

“I profoundly breached trust, which I should not have done,” Mantach said in his police interview.

The president of the Victorian Liberals, Michael Kroger, said on Thursday he is overseeing the introduction of a completely new set of governance procedures after the scandal.

Mantach said in his police interview he started taking the money to clear $100,000 of bad debt, then the scams started acting as a sort of “anaesthetic” for personal problems in his life.

The 42-year-old used $600,000 to buy a cafe for his then-wife Jodie in Queenscliff, near their Ocean Grove home.

“She wanted a cafe, so she got a cafe,” he told police.

While Mantach said his wife was aware their newfound wealth came from a relationship with a printer, he claimed she did not ask questions.

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He also claimed the printer also didn’t ask questions about why he had to send extra invoices, as he was keen to keep the party’s business.

The Liberal party has recouped some money from selling Mantach’s shares, but has so far not sought to sell his family home or the cafe.

“The party will be seeking to recover as much as we can in relation to this matter,” Kroger said on Thursday.

Mantach has been behind bars since 18 November, and was expected to remain there until he appears in the Victorian county court on 6 May.

