regarding attempts to rort the Estate Agents Guarantee Fund. Specifically, Perton reported that Land Victoria and the Department of Justice (DoJ) had "conspired to invent a 'survey reform' project to extract $7.5 million from the fund. Land Victoria, a division of DNRE, under direction of O’Keeffe, and in collaboration with DoJ, was reported to have attempted to create "the survey project" to obtain extra government funding through EAGF, despite already having been funded. The administration of EAGF was under DoJ. Perton reported that O’Keeffe's role in what became known as the EAGF scandal also involved successfully obtaining high level political approval for wrongful access to EAGF funds between October and December 2000. This included "invention" of a $1.5 million "fraudulent survey project" as well as "other funds hidden away in smaller applications" totaling $7.5 million. It was also reported that the survey project proposal was not revealed by O’Keeffe to the Surveyor-General of Victoria. Perton reported that efforts by the Surveyor-General Keith Bell to raise his concerns about the attempts to obtain funds inappropriately from EAGF through his office resulted in the Surveyor-General being threatened and intimidated by O'Keeffe. Perton, in April 2002 in Parliament and earlier in the media, quoted "from documents from 2001 in which the assistant director of land records and information services, Ivan Powell, talks of having 'invented some benefits' in regard to the project and of a request to 'invent another layer of detail'. Powell was a senior Land Registry official (under Land Victoria). It was later reported that the Surveyor-General had earlier reported his concerns to the Auditor-General who stepped to prevent it from proceeding. The Surveyor-General also reported his concerns to the Ombudsman. Perton reported to the Parliament that O’Keeffe was acting with the full support of the responsible Minister, Sherryl Garbutt. Garbutt, the Minister for Conservation and Environment, to which Land Victoria was accountable. Further, Perton reported that investigations by the Auditor-General and by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (Deloitte) were not willingly assisted by O’Keeffe and Land Victoria. Requests for information and assistance by Deloitte's were blocked by Land Victoria. Perton reported that on 31 May 2001, Deloitte requested information from Land Victoria. In response, O’Keeffe's subordinate, John Hartigan, Director of the Land Registry (under Land Victoria) directed all staff to not comply with any request for information from Deloitte. Perton reported that the Surveyor-General initially raised his concerns of the proposal to