Both major parties are accusing each other of impropriety over a leaked recording of a conversation between a journalist and former Victorian Liberal premier Ted Baillieu.
The Age newspaper accused unnamed senior figures within Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews' office and the Labor Party of removing from lost property a tape recorder dropped by an Age journalist at the ALP 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.
The Age newspaper says "one of the top officials in Victorian Labor ranks" took the recorder, listened to the tape, copied it and sought legal advice before deciding against leaking the recording.
Despite this, an online link to the recording was sent by email to hundreds of Liberal Party members by a person using a false name and purporting to be a fellow Liberal.
Mr Andrews said the claims 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 said his party is investigating if a member or someone with access to the member database disseminated the email.
But he said Mr Andrews must say what role Labor officials and his staff played in obtaining the tape.
"If it wasn't improperly acquired, if copies weren't made, if legal advice wasn't taken we quite rightly wouldn't be here, and that's why I say that this whole issue goes to the character of those that want to form government because those questions still haven't been answered by Labor," he said on Friday.
"And if they cannot be answered by Labor today, in a full and frank way, Victorians can't have any confidence in the way that Daniel Andrews would run the state."
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