Below is the story in Crikey in 2003 exposing Batchelor's office for writing bogus letters to the media exposing ticket inspectors:
Transport Minister sprung by ticket inspectors? Crikey Sealed Section - July 31, 2003
Is Victorian Transport Minister Peter Batchelor or his office behind a letter writing campaign defending Melbourne's heavy handed ticket inspectors? Suspicions are rising.Last year, the Melbourne Times published a supportive letter on the subject from an Ann Read of Parkville - who turned out to be in neither the local electoral roll or the White Pages.Recently, The Age and The Hun have both carried a letter from a 13 year old supporting the inspectors - a very professionally written letter. A suspiciously professionally written letter, in fact - unless it comes from a precociously gifted 13-year-old.Then there's been the supportive piece of correspondence from a resident of Tasmania. The person involved may be a public transport obsessive who spends a lot of time on the northern side of Bass Strait because they can't get enough of Melbourne trams, but on the other hand they may well not.To top it off, other letters have appeared attributed to a P Cooper from Wantirna and a Paul Reed from Footscray - and guess what you find when you go looking for their names in the phone book. Perhaps they've both just moved, but that seems a little coincidental.The Victorian ALP has form on this sort of thing. Back in 1999, the party asked for sympathisers to allow their names to be used for a letter writing campaign and professional party hacks deluged newspapers across the state with correspondence produced on a bewildering variety of stationery in different fonts and hands denouncing Jeff.
It didn't work that well in the city - but delivered some unexpected dividends in country seats. Is Batchelor giving the strategy another go? Publish this comment. Reject this comment. Moderate comments for this blog.
Posted by Anonymous to PT Inspector Watch - Melbourne at 11/23/2006 09:30:26 PM
It didn't work that well in the city - but delivered some unexpected dividends in country seats. Is Batchelor giving the strategy another go?

