A BLACK notebook left in a desk drawer in the premier's office has reignited the row over Labor's tactics for last month's election, and looks set to trigger a formal inquiry into the possibility the Brumby government inappropriately accessed Coalition emails.
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While truckloads of documents were shredded and disposed of from ministers' offices in the days before last month's election, the revealing notebook was apparently overlooked by a strategic adviser to Mr Brumby, Simon Hammersley.
In October, The Age identified Mr Hammersley as a member of an informal committee run out of the premier's office and dubbed the ''dirt unit'' by senior Labor figures. It aimed to discredit opposition and Green MPs and candidates based on investigations of their political, business, and sometimes personal, histories.
The notebook, seen by The Age, provides an insight into the political tactics employed by the Labor administration and the increasing influence of its army of ministerial staff over electoral campaigns, traditionally the domain of political party head offices.
One page of the notebook in particular appears troubling for Labor, even in opposition. Under ''D. Davis'' (almost certainly a reference to former opposition health spokesman now Health Minister David Davis) notes refer to emails ''2 and from'' and information of a ''personal'' nature.
The page also identifies a ''Mulder file'' - presumably a file on former opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder - which was to ''go to Tom'', most likely Tom Cargill, Mr Brumby's head of strategy to whom Mr Hammersley reported.
The notebook also:
■ Shows that company searches had been done on Coalition MPs, including senior Liberal Louise Asher, National Party leader Peter Ryan and colleague Damian Drum.
■ Refers to a ''Kennett cheerleader'' and ''school closures'' - an apparent reference to Labor's controversial allegation that Ted Baillieu gained financially from former premier Jeff Kennett's school sales program in the early 1990s while he was also president of the Victorian Liberals. A TV ad on the issue ran in the 2006 campaign and was updated for this year's poll.
■ Highlights the extent to which campaign work, including the wording of advertisements, was done by advisers and then given to ALP headquarters.
■ Includes a list of search tools and categories for probing opponents' histories including ''property'' (ownership), ''known associates'', and searches on ''Factiva'', ''Google'' and ''Hansard''.
The Baillieu government's Crime Prevention Minister Andrew McIntosh said the discovery of the notebook revealed the full extent of Labor's dirt unit operation. "The secret black book of the dirt unit discovered in a desk drawer in the former premier's office reveals that his [Mr Brumby's] staff were compiling dirt files and potentially seeking to penetrate the emails of a member of Parliament,'' he said.
He said the government was considering a formal investigation.
Mr Hammersley refused to discuss the notebook with The Age. Opposition spokeswoman Emma Tyner denied the Brumby government had had inappropriate access to emails. She did not respond to questions about the Brumby dirt unit or whether Labor had overly relied on smear tactics.
''Ted Baillieu owes it to all Victorians to focus on implementing his hundreds of election promises rather than trying to smear the opposition,'' she said.
Headed by one of Mr Brumby's strategy advisers, Chris Reilly, the dirt unit met weekly in the premier's offices in the year before last month's poll.
A long-running examination of Mr Baillieu's business interests was a priority, as it was for Labor before the 2006 election. But with the Greens making a serious play for inner-city seats, the smear campaign also focused on the third party's key candidates. Among its activities were the compilation of a dossier on the Greens candidate for the seat of Melbourne, lawyer Brian Walters, which sought to portray him as anti-Semitic.
The Age obtained the dossier and has since confirmed it was put together by a senior ministerial adviser.
Dirt unit work also surfaced in August in newspaper stories and public attacks led by former finance minister Tim Holding on Mr Baillieu's supposed links to an overseas tax haven.
Claims were made about shareholdings of other Coalition MPs, including Mr Davis and, wrongly, upper house Liberal MP Wendy Lovell.
Throughout the campaign Mr Brumby denied running a dirt unit but defended the right of his government to scrutinise the opposition.
His deputy, former attorney-general Rob Hulls, repeatedly attacked Mr Baillieu and his colleagues as ''sooks'' for complaining about Labor's tactics.
But Mr Baillieu will have the last laugh, and from the government benches today will make use of the little black book to rub salt into Labor's electoral wounds.
