Victoria’s Manufacturing Minister Richard Dalla-Riva has finally admitted claims made by VEXNEWS two years ago and repeated in the Victorian Parliament this week that he used Police databases to spy on his neighbours.
He insists that this was justified because he was investigating letterbox bombings of his home in 1993. Today’s Aged newspaper reports that he has confirmed our initial report and – perhaps showing signs of strain – said he would be “vowing to push for an anti-corruption investigation into the Labor frontbencher (James Merlino)” who repeated some elements of the VEXNEWS story during this colourful week in state politics.
A minister interfering in investigations of the yet to be established Independent Commission Against Corruption would probably be putting his job in serious jeopardy, the whole point of these bodies apparently being that they operate independently of ministerial whim.
So he’d better watch that, and we understand RDR will be counselled against such outbursts by the Baillieu/Cafagna hierarchy this morning.
Leaving that aside, and there are questions about the timing of the spying that are unresolved, now that he has admitted our central claim, the obvious question arises how did we know?
While we are obliged to protect source’s confidentiality what we can disclose for the first time is that
Dalls-Riva’s wife, Sadie
, apparently also in law enforcement, has boasted to her neighbours of the fact that this checking of the neighbourhood had occurred. While we won’t name our source or the identity of the neighbour, we remain in contact with the former and their recollections – when we checked this week – are unchanged.