Victorian taxpayers have shelled out "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to pay for repeated legal bids by the government to block a misuse of allowances investigation, the opposition say.
The High Court tossed out an appeal by the Victorian government to stop an investigation into allegations Labor misused taxpayer-funded allowances in the 2014 state election.
It was the third, and final, court attempt by the Andrews Labor government to legally stop Ombudsman Deborah Glass from examining the allegations.
The matter was referred to Ms Glass by the Legislative Council in 2015, after a parliamentary services report found the ALP's use of electorate office funds to pay 26 staff for two days a week of campaigning in 2014 "would not pass the pub test" among voters.
Opposition leader Matthew Guy says when parliament resumes he'll demand the exact cost of all the legal action be revealed.
"It is outrageous the amount of money that's been spent. The estimates are well in the hundreds of thousands of dollars," he told reporters on Wednesday.
The government went to the High Court after an appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed.
It has been trying to fight a Supreme Court ruling that it is within Ms Glass' jurisdiction to investigate the allegations.
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