Senior staff from Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews' office and Labor Party chiefs were involved in the theft of a journalist's recording device as part of a dirty tricks campaign to destabilise the Napthine Government.
The Age can reveal that a dictaphone belonging to Sunday Age political editor Farrah Tomazin was handed in to lost property by security at Labor's state conference in May, before it was obtained and listened to by one of the top officials in Victorian Labor ranks.
The dictaphone contained a private conversation between Tomazin and former Liberal premier Ted Baillieu in which he was critical of colleagues. More than a month later a link to the conversation, now posted online, was emailed to hundreds of Liberal Party members by a person claiming to be a Liberal Party member - using a false name.
It is understood that copies of the taped conversation were made by a senior Labor official and scrutinised by others in the party's organisational wing, as well as senior strategists in Mr Andrews' office.