The Liberals say Labor did it. Labor says it's nonsense. Victoria Police says it wasn't one of their tapes.
The witch hunt is underway to find who leaked audio of a phone call allegedly lining up a secret political donation ahead of Victorian opposition leader Matthew Guy's now infamous lobster dinner date.
Mr Guy maintains he met with long-time Liberal supporter Frank Lamattina and his cousin and alleged Melbourne crime boss Tony Madafferi at the Lobster Cave in April to discuss issues around fruit and vegetable markets.
But tapes obtained by Fairfax Media record the Liberal party's Dunkley federal electorate conference secretary Barrie MacMillan saying he organised the dinner to solicit donations.
"They want to give Matthew a substantial donation," Mr MacMillan said according to a recording obtained by Fairfax.
Victorian Liberal Party of Australia President Michael Kroger says both people on the call have denied releasing the tape and no donations have been received from anyone at the dinner
"Labor's dirty hand is all over this as far as we're concerned," Mr Kroger told 3AW on Wednesday.
But Premier Daniel Andrews rejected Mr Kroger's suggestion the recordings came from the Labor government.
"That's just a complete nonsense, a complete and utter nonsense," he told reporters.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton says he's been assured the recordings did not come from his force,
"I did the necessary checks at our end and what's come back from those checks is that there's certainly nothing that we've recorded that is in amongst what's been reported here in the press," he told 3AW.
The Greens say the saga shows if anything, Victoria's political donations system "is broken".
"Victoria has the weakest political donations system in Australia, so if anything comes out of this the government needs to start reforming our political donations system," Greens MLA Sam Hibbins told reporters.
