"Have you had your iPhone or a similar item knocked off?"

"Keep your hand up if it was reported to the police.   If the police caught the crook, please move to the front of the auditorium - not a large group, but still."

"Now if the police referred your crook to the DPP over a theft worth a couple of hundred dollars, your crook wins the Jackpot!!!!!" 

Here's Your ABC's report on the way we are equal but some are more equal than others.   I hear they do a great routine at the expense of juvenile rape victims too.

Public prosecutor recommends no charges be laid over alleged theft of journalist's dictaphone

Updated about an hour agoWed 14 Jan 2015, 11:16am

Photo: Daniel Andrews as opposition leader in June 2014 said he did not know how the contents of a reporter's dictaphone were leaked. (AAP: Julian Smith)

 

No charges will be laid over the alleged theft of a journalist's recorder at a Labor state conference in 2014, Victoria's Office of Public Prosecutions (OPP) has recommended.

ALP members allegedly stole Fairfax journalist Farrah Tomazin's dictaphone from the lost property box at the May conference, after she dropped it.

The details of a recording of the former Premier Ted Baillieu criticising some of his party colleagues were then emailed to Liberal Party members.

Police investigated the matter but the OPP said no charges would be laid.

"The Office of Public Prosecutions this week provided advice to Victoria Police regarding the alleged theft and destruction of a dictaphone in June last year," Victoria Police said in a statement.

"Their recommendation is that no charges be laid in relation to this matter."

Senior Labor Party figures admitted they listened to the tape in July last year.

Victorian Labor's assistant secretary Kosmos Samaras said in July that he destroyed the recording device after listening to its contents and hearing a conversation with himself and other senior politicians.

"I listened through the device to ascertain whether there were any other recordings of my private conversations," Mr Samaras said in the statement.

"In doing so I listened to numerous senior politicians on both sides of politics and others whose private conversations which I presumed had also been recorded without their knowledge.

"After some consideration, I decided that given the device contained unauthorised private conversations, it was not appropriate to retain, return or disseminate the device. I destroyed it.

"In hindsight, this was the wrong thing to do. I should have returned the device and sought an explanation for why I was being recorded. I apologise to Ms Tomazin and the Age for not having returned the device."

Labor says OPP decision 'ends the matter'

The Acting Premier, James Merlino, said the decision not to lay charges marked the end of the matter for Labor.

"We've always said that the authorities have had a job to do and they've done that," Mr Merlino said.

"From my perspective that's the end of the matter."

In July last year, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who was Labor's opposition leader at the time, said he had no involvement in the matter and did not know how the contents came to be leaked to Liberal MPs.

However Labor state secretary Noah Carroll said he and Mr Andrews's chief of staff John McLindon listened to one of the recordings with Mr Samaras.

"Mr McLindon, Mr Samaras and myself listened to one of the files and we were informed by Mr Samaras that there were many more like them," Mr Carroll said in a statement at the time.

"It was collectively agreed later that same day that all of the contents should and could not be circulated further in any way. Subsequent to this, all files from the device were destroyed."