Victorian Liberals did no background checks when they hired Damien Mantach, who is now accused of embezzling $1.5 million from the party, so did not know that he was effectively sacked as Tasmanian Liberal director over personal spending on his party credit card. We want our money back.
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“People did a lot of work to get that. And rightly so. We are furious … we want justice done”.
Mr Mantach is now the only person implicated.
Internal investigations revealed irregularities that have now been turned over to police by the state administrative committee.
Mr Mantach is yet to comment on the allegations.
Soon afterwards, however, he was employed as a campaign worker by the Victorian Liberal party, and was later promoted to party director. He shielded his face from cameras with his briefcase as he walked away.
The current state branch president Michael Kroger said Mr Mantach had made admissions and it appeared he was the only one involved.
The missing funds were only contained within the Victorian division, Mr Kroger said.
Mr Kroger said the alleged theft would not affect the party’s election campaigning.
Referring to Mantach’s involvement in another controversy in which the Exclusive Brethren religious group tried to secretly influence the 2006 Tasmanian state election with ads attacking the Greens, Sterle suggested in parliament that Abetz may be able to “shed some light” on the matter since he was a key figure in the Tasmanian party at that time. “He has my confidence”, Tony Abbott said at the time when he was opposition leader.
It is understood the scam – uncovered following concern about campaign overspending – included writing invoices for non-existent companies, with money channelled back to family interests.
“It doesn’t involve anyone else in the party”, Mr Kroger told ABC Radio.
“We feel profoundly betrayed and terribly disappointed with what’s happened”, Mr Kroger told reporters on Thursday.
“We will allege that Mr Mantach has defrauded the party of around $1.5 million”, it said in a statement on Thursday.
Tony Nutt, the Victorian Liberal Party director in 2008, declined to comment because the matter was the subject of a police investigation.
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She said the squad are “aware of an external investigation” into the alleged disappearance of funds from a Victorian government party.
