Damien Mantach's Vic Lib rip-offs

WHAT DAMIEN MANTACH DID

* Mantach took $1.5 million in campaign funds and spent them on his lifestyle, debts and his wife's cafe

* He faked invoices for research and online ads he never ordered, and added a premium to printing costs

* The Victorian and federal parliaments paid some of Mantach's fraudulent printing bills, through MPs' electorate printing allowances

* The coalition lost a close 2014 election, with 6800 votes across six seats the difference between government and opposition

* The post-election wash-up included allegations the Liberal research and polling had been wrong in key seats.

MANTACH'S POLICE INTERVIEW

* "I profoundly breached trust, which I should not have done."

* "It was never actually about greed, it was never about, you know, going off and getting a whole heap of lovely materialistic things."

* "I had a number of personal issues that I was not dealing with properly and when I took money it basically relieved pressure in my personal life."

* "Political parties don't operate like a commercial business... For people who come from a business background, they find that very, very strange and they sometimes would think that we should be applying better business practices. And the answer is `Yes, you should be,' because obviously you can see there were holes in this big enough to drive a bus through."

* "(My wife Jodie) actually only asked a few questions about it on a couple of occasions and then busiedherself spending."

COMING BACK TO BITE HIM

* "I can assure you at my age I've got no desire to go to jail." - secretly recorded talking about campaign funding at a 2014 Liberal meeting.

SOURCE: Victoria Police interview