Outgoing Liberal party state director Julian Sheezel has emphatically denied being knowingly concerned in the creation of a website critical of his leader Ted Baillieu's performance and policies.
The OC stands by our assertion that he knew about it prior to Ted Baillieu's office insisting he take action against it.
We have decided to give him and Tony Barry a chance to clear their name, using the latest in lie detection technology. The testing would be conducted by an independent expert mutually agreed by Sheezel and the OC and would be made available online on a pay per view basis.
Game on.
Here's his denial:
Statement
Julian Sheezel, State Director
I have today advised the media of the Party’s ongoing investigation of contributions to the blog site hewhostandsfornothing.blogspot.com.
On 14 April the Party President and I became aware for the first time that two Party staff members had been active contributors to the offending blog site. We acted immediately to terminate the employment of those two staff members involved and advised Ted Baillieu of the terminations.
There is no evidence that other Secretariat staff members were involved or had any knowledge of contributions to the blog site.
I was not aware of the identities of any contributor to the blog site before 14 April, and was not aware that contributions were being made from 104 Exhibition Street. Because it had not been the practice of the Party to monitor the electronic activities of staff members I was not aware until 14 April of the involvement of the two offending staff members in the blog site. Any assertions to the contrary are malicious and wrong.
The Party’s investigation of the blog site and contributors to the site has continued from 14 April. As a result of this investigation there is evidence that a small number of other Party members were contributors or provided information for the site to damage Ted Baillieu or other members of parliament. Once the investigation is complete a report will be given to the State President and State Leader.
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