A Victorian integrity agency has effectively closed the case on Labor's long-running "red shirts" scandal and cleared Premier Daniel Andrews of involvement after a fresh investigation into the scheme.
Ombudsman Deborah Glass says there isn't enough evidence to justify referral of the scandal, in which Labor was found to have misused $388,000 of taxpayer funds in the lead up to the 2014 election, to the anti-corruption watchdog or Victoria Police.
"It is time to end this debate," she wrote in a report tabled in state parliament on Thursday.
"I cannot, of course, rule out that further evidence may yet come to light, but with the passage of time and difficulty in proof I am not prepared to spend further public resources on these matters."
No criminal charges were laid after her first report in 2018, despite 21 past and present Labor MPs being found to have breached parliamentary guidelines, although the party repaid the money.
Nonetheless, Ms Glass reopened the investigation after a motion, brought on by former Labor powerbroker Adem Somyurek, was passed by the upper house in February.
The motion specifically asked the state's watchdogs to probe any role Premier Daniel Andrews may have played in the scheme, a proposition shot down by the ombudsman.
"While Mr Andrews openly confirms he was aware of the scheme, there is no evidence available to me showing that he had any role in designing, propagating, or facilitating it," Ms Glass wrote.
Within the 38-page report, Ms Glass takes aim at Victoria Police over their handling of the affair, saying the force should apologise to 17 former Labor staffers arrested and strip-searched in dawn raids.
The report noted MPs were not treated in the same "allegedly heavy-handed fashion" as their staffers, despite police insisting they were unaware of any such directive.
"Whether or not such a directive existed, if senior command did intervene, I do not criticise it. It is only a pity that they did not intervene to stop the dawn arrests of the former field organisers," she writes.
"It may relieve the sense of unfairness that at least some of those arrested must have felt, if senior police command would acknowledge this and apologise to them."
Speaking to media, Mr Andrews said he would "let the report speak for itself" and wouldn't be drawn on if police should apologise.
"I don't think there's anything to be gained by me going back over them," he said.
Ms Glass last week described the Andrews government's response to her 2018 investigation as "tepid" when handing down another report into branch-stacking within the party's moderate faction, previously led by Mr Somyurek.
The joint inquiry with the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission renewed scrutiny of the red shirts scheme's architect John Lenders, leading him to resign from Labor's campaign committee ahead of this November's state election.
The former Victorian treasurer was identified as having the "greatest share of culpability" for the scheme in Ms Glass's 2018 report, but was not the subject of the joint Operation Watts probe.
