Victorian Opposition leader Daniel Andrews' chief of staff listened to a leaked recording of a conversation between a journalist and former Liberal premier Ted Baillieu weeks before it was made public, the Herald Sun newspaper says.
The revelation follows an accusation from The Age newspaper on Friday that unnamed senior figures within Mr Andrews' office and the Labor party of removing from lost property a tape recorder dropped by an Age journalist at the Labor state conference in May.
It says they copied a conversation on it between the owner and Mr Baillieu.
In it, Mr Baillieu is heard referring to independent MP Geoff Shaw, upper house Liberal MP Bernie Finn and his "crazy mates" and federal government minister Kevin Andrews.
An online link to the conversation was later emailed to hundreds of Liberal Party members by a person using a false name and purporting to be a fellow Liberal.
The Herald Sun said John McLindon, Mr Andrews' chief of staff, listened to the tape before it was leaked.
The Liberal Party is investigating whether a member of its party distributed the email that leaked the conversation publicly.
On Friday, Mr Andrews said The Age's claims that Labor was involved in the leak are "wrong and untrue, and they have been referred to our lawyers", and dissemination of the tape was "100 per cent an internal Liberal Party matter".
"The distribution of that material was conducted by the Liberal Party to the Liberal Party and it is them that should answer for that, not anyone else," he said.
Liberal Planning Minister Matthew Guy again called on Mr Andrews to explain Labor's role in the tapes scandal.
"There are so many questions here that remain unanswered by Labor and Daniel Andrews. If Labor and Daniel Andrews cannot be honest on this matter with Victorians, if they won't front up and answer the questions that Victorians, that industry, that the media and all of us deserve to have answer by a man and a party presenting themselves as an alternative premier and government, then how can we have any faith in anything they say between now and November?" he said.
The Victorian state election will be held on November 29.
Mr Guy said the Liberal Party will remove any member of the party found to be involved in disseminating the Baillieu tape and will call in the police if necessary.
A spokesman for Mr Andrews declined to comment further on Saturday, saying Mr Andrews stands by his comments on Friday.
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