There was no cover-up of a senior ministerial adviser's inappropriate conduct while he was a teacher, a Victorian minister says.
Former teacher Marc Boxer was employed in the planning department in 2008 before he was seconded to former Labor planning minister Simon Madden's office and then to coalition minister Matthew Guy.
Mr Boxer later became an adviser to Mr Guy but quit his position on Monday after a newspaper revealed he was deregistered as a teacher in 2004.
Mr Guy said on Tuesday he was told about the historic case involving Mr Boxer about 18 months ago.
"I at the time asked a few things. First of all, was there any follow-up in terms of police or anything else, and there wasn't," Mr Guy told reporters.
"Was there any behavioural issues in my department or other offices? There wasn't."
Mr Guy said the decision was made to keep Mr Boxer in the role, which he had been recommended for under two ministers.
He said Mr Boxer's record had been available publicly for a number of years.
"We never sought to cover anything up, we never sought to hide anything."
A Victorian Institute of Teaching decision shows Mr Boxer sent sexually suggestive emails to a 15-year-old schoolgirl over a four-month period in 2002, and once put his hands into her pants to pull up her shorts in 2001.
"The teacher's actions constitute serious misconduct and that by those actions he has demonstrated himself to be a person unfit to teach," the tribunal report said.
Mr Guy said Mr Boxer had deserved to be punished and lose his teaching job.
"There deserved to be zero tolerance applied to those (incidents)," he said.
"I believe that as a consequence he went on to do a degree in planning, and try to obviously get into a little bit of a different field."
Mr Guy said he accepted Mr Boxer's resignation because he wanted to go.
"Marc resigned, he wanted to move on straight away," he said.
Shadow attorney-general Martin Pakula said Mr Boxer was a department liaison officer (DLO) to the planning minister's office under the previous Labor government.
"Ministers don't decide who the department assigns them as DLOs. Mr Guy made the decision to employ him on his private staff," Mr Pakula told reporters.
Mr Guy and Mr Pakula said it was up to the planning department secretary if Mr Boxer kept his public service position.
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