Two million dollars of taxpayers’ money ‘rorted’ by the Liberals at and around the last election by using their Parliamentary and ministerial staff to work on their election campaigns, the Deputy Premier claimed.

This was so serious, Merlino said, he’d called the cops.

It all sounded a bit like the ‘red shirts’ affair that has Merlino’s Labor government in such strife, now that Victorian Police are investigating.

So the onus on Monday morning was on the Deputy Premier to show that there was some substance to his accusations, to show that wasn’t just flying a kite to distract from the terrible political trouble that Labor faces.

He didn’t.

Merlino didn’t produce any of the evidence that he says he has against the Liberals (it’s “with the police”) or anything else to show the Victorian public that there’s any substance to his claims.

The minister offered nothing on Monday morning other than the seven paragraph press release with the allegations he has made to Victoria Police against the Liberals and Nationals.

Not much, in other words.

This principle has taken a battering in Australia recently, but it should be a big thing for a democratic government to call the police on its political opponents.

Because that’s the type of thing tinpot dictators do.

So Merlino’s actions show how rattled the Andrews government is by Friday’s bombshell news that Victoria Police were moving on to a full investigation of red shirts.

In the absence of anything substantial to back up Merlino’s claims against his opponents, we’re left with the impression that Labor is grasping for a distraction, something, anything between now and November as its misuse of public money four years ago haunts the Andrews government all the way to the state election.

Maybe Merlino really has the goods on the 26 Coalition politicians he has named in his press release. Time will tell.

But people are innocent until proven guilty under our system of law. You can’t just throw some mud out there without evidence, hope it sticks and expect to be taken seriously.

That’s not how it is supposed to work, anyway.