The Baillieu tape scandal has been hovering over Labor’s head since last June, jeopardising its election campaign.
Assistant state secretary of the Labor Party, Kosmos Samaras, who publicly admitted to snooping the dictaphone from the lost property at the May state conference, downloading and listening to it, will not be charged for his actions.
“The recommendation was that no charges be laid in relation to this matter,” Victoria Police said in a statement on Wednesday.
Kosmos Samaras allegedly shared the dictaphone’s content, which featured former premier’s Ted Baillieu’s conversation with certain Liberal Party members.
Samaras, worried about Baillieu’s attempt to destabilise Napthine, played the recording to Daniel Andrews’ chief of staff John McLindon and Labor state secretary Noah Carroll. Up to now neither of them admits distributing said dictaphone, which was owned by Sunday Age state political editor Farrah Tomazin.
Editor-in-chief of The Age, Andrew Holden, said he was surprised by the OPP’s advice.
“When you have someone who confesses publicly that he took possession of a dictaphone that was not his, listened to it, downloaded and played the recordings to others, and then destroyed the recorder – all in clear contravention of the law – then I would have thought he would face the consequences, even if that led to diversion,” Mr Holden said.
Mr Holden found it particularly galling when three Age reporters were charged over their accessing of an Australian Labor Party database after being given the password by a concerned member, with one of those reporters and his family subjected to a police raid of their home, when that supposed crime had no victims.
“Fortunately, they were granted diversion by a magistrate, but they still had to endure the full processes of court,” Holden continued.
“The ALP’s Kosmos Samaras should consider himself a very lucky man.”
Mr Andrews, on the other hand, who had initially denied any Labor involvement, has previously said that he was satisfied with his own inquiries.
“From my perspective that is the end of the matter,” acting premier James Merlino said, stressing that the story involves issues which were widely canvassed, yet investigated and a decision has been made by the authorities who “have done their job”.