The problems with this work, including lack of completeness and poor spatial accuracy were reported by both the Valuer-General and Surveyor-General, but were not rectified by O'Keeffe and Jacoby.
Throughout these, O'Keeffe seemed to have enjoyed the strong support of Minister Garbutt and Secretary Munro, despite the frequent concerns raised by the State opposition and the media.
O’Keeffe's leadership of Land Victoria was raised in the Victorian Parliament by Opposition environment spokesman Victor Perton on 17 April 2002 for her leading role in the Estate Agents Guarantee Fund (EAGF) scandal.
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".
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 regards to the project and of a request to 'invent another layer of detail'.
Perton reported to the Parliament that O’Keeffe was acting with the full support of the responsible Minister, Sherryl Garbutt.
Perton also reported that the Surveyor-General initially raised his concerns of the proposal to obtain funds from EAGF on 7 March 2001.
In fact, efforts by DENR to blame the Surveyor-General for leaks were misplaced as Bell was a protected whistleblower, having gone through the appropriate channel to raise concerns with the Ombudsman.
Thus, this was further evidence of malfeasance, including efforts to intimidate and harass the Surveyor-General, by O'Keeffe supported by Secretary Munro and endorsed by Minister Garbutt.
The Auditor-General had prevented an earlier attempt by O’Keeffe-led Land Victoria and the Department of Justice to “raid the EAGF of $45 million".
[10] The Opposition frequently raised its concerns regarding O’Keeffe's performance as the executive director of Land Victoria especially on matters of governance and accountability during the period 2001–02.
[11] The Surveyor-General, through his annual reports required under the Survey Coordination Act (1958) reiterated concerns that while important responsibilities had been removed from him, he retained statutory accountability for them.
[5] It was also reported that O’Keeffe had approved an illegal $100,000 contract for a consultant to “lobby her own Minister”, Garbutt, to discredit the Surveyor-General as well as the professional and industry bodies, the Institution of Surveyors Victoria and the Association of Consulting Surveyors Victoria, whilst also lobbying to promote the Spatial Information Industry Action Agenda.
After adverse media and Opposition reporting, the contract was found to not be appropriate and was cancelled after the first tranche of $25,000 was paid to ASIBA.
[10][13] Some five months after Bell had resigned as Surveyor-General in July 2003, the media reported on his experiences and the efforts to intimidate him and prevent his undertaking of his statutory roles.
[14] The efforts of O'Keeffe, approved by Secretary Munro and Minister Garbutt, did not succeed and were decried through frequent reporting by the media and in the State Parliament by the Opposition.
In fact, it is especially notable that Bell, was subsequently officially recognized for his professional service as both Surveyor-General and for his significant contributions to professions and good governance, through the conferring of several awards including a Doctorate of Applied Science Honoris Causa, RMIT University in 2003 and appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours (Australia).
One such disagreement was reported in the Western Australia media by former senior Land Registry officer, Mr. Grahame Searle, who commented that it caused his resignation in late 1997.
[19][20] In the 1990s, many complaints from the public were submitted to the Victorian government - to ministers and Land Victoria regarding Fox's construction of walls and breakwaters in the beach areas outside of his Portsea property on the Mornington Peninsular.
These constructions enabled significant accretion of land to the beach changing the mean high water mark boundary.
During 1997–99, acting Surveyors-General Barrie Bremner and Allan Fennell, undertook expert investigations and determined that the gains in land were neither slow nor imperceptible.
Her much reported departure from Land Victoria saw her replaced on ANZLIC and other national Spatial Information Industry Action Agenda roles.
However, there were further departures from Land Victoria including Hartigan a few weeks prior to O'Keeffe in June 2002 and Jacoby at the end of 2002.
[33] The Age reported 7 January 2004 on a potential cover-up at the NGV when a glass panel in the roof shattered in late 2003 following the re-opening after almost 4 years of closure for renovations.
[39] O’Keeffe subsequently worked as a strategic management consultant and also for Transparency International Australia (TIA) as a director from 7 August 2006 to 20 November 2014.
Baillieu, as Shadow Planning Minister during O'Keeffe's period at Land Victoria, was highly critical of O'Keeffe's performance and serious governance issues including efforts to intimidate the Surveyor-General, especially attempted blocking of his statutory reporting and also performance as an electoral boundaries redistribution commissioner.
Further, TIA claims that it advocates for policies and to build coalitions "to change the status quo" and its "vision of a corruption-free world is not an end in itself.