ACT Greens MP Jonathon Davis has been stood down after accusations that he allegedly engaged in inappropriate conduct that is of a sexual nature.
The allegations are unsubstantiated, and no charges have been laid, but the 31-year-old politician has immediately been stood down from his responsibilities.
ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury confirmed that the Greens party were investigating the allegations, and he had suspended Davis from his parliamentary role.
“Earlier this week I received information about a complaint related to Jonathan Davis MLA.” Rattenbury said on Friday when speaking to the media. “These were extremely serious complaints. I immediately instructed a senior staff member to conduct an initial review of the information and identify the necessary steps that we needed to take in response to this information.”
” I have suspended Jonathan Davis from his MLA duties effective immediately, effective in the last few days, and he will be stood down indefinitely in this point of time.”
The Attorney-General said his office had not seen any evidence of any illegal activity, but the allegations that were being made were serious and have been referred to the ACT police.
The Canberra Times has published screen shots of text messages attributed to Davis where he allegedly comments that he has only ever had sexual relationships with people of a legal age. The age of consent in the ACT is sixteen years of age.
The territory’s Chief minister Andrew Barr and Acting Chief Minister Yvette Berry issued a joint statement saying they were aware of the allegations, describing them as “very serious”.
“We understand the matter is being referred to police and expect a full investigation to take place. We have asked the ACT Greens to ensure support is provided to the individuals who have made these matters public.” they said.
Barr and Berry said that Davis should seriously consider his position, calling on him to resign from parliament.
“The best path would be to accept what we understand to be the position of the ACT Greens party leadership and resign his position in the Assembly,” they said.
After the allegations became public on Friday Davis deleted his social media channels including Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram.
Davis was elected to the seat of Brindabella in 2020. His election campaign made national headlines when a political rival described him as being “too camp”. He went on to win the seat by a narrow margin of 82 votes.
OIP Staff, OUTinPerth has contacted Jonathan Davis for comment.
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