Greens leader Shane Rattenbury statement on allegations made against former Greens MLA Jonathan Davis

The Canberra Times

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Transcript

00:00 Good morning everybody.

00:08 Today I wish to provide a detailed account of the information

00:12 raised with me about Jonathan Davis and what has happened since that time.

00:16 First, I need to be clear that only one person has come forward to my office

00:21 to talk about their intimate experience with Jonathan.

00:25 That person was 17 years old at the time of the interactions they described.

00:30 I also need to be clear that I do not have any information

00:34 confirming any illegal conduct by Jonathan.

00:38 There has not been any person come forward to me who has said they were 15

00:43 years at the time of any sexual interactions with Jonathan.

00:47 But other people have raised concerns that they believe that did occur.

00:52 If that did occur, it is an extremely serious matter.

00:56 And I am grateful to those people who recognized its seriousness and

01:00 had the courage to bring it to my attention.

01:02 It was the same concern that my office referred what had been shared with us

01:07 to police.

01:08 Now, Jonathan has not attended work since last Monday, the 6th of November.

01:13 That's the day I was informed of concerns about Jonathan's conduct and

01:18 asked a member of my senior staff to conduct initial inquiries to determine

01:21 the most appropriate next steps.

01:23 The concerns were raised by people who were not personally involved, but

01:29 this was strongly by the information they were presenting.

01:32 In the course of his inquiries over the following days,

01:36 my staff member spoke with a young person who had been in an intimate

01:40 relationship with Jonathan when this person was 17 years old.

01:44 This person had concerns about Jonathan's interactions with young people, but

01:49 it was clear that he did not believe his personal experience

01:53 breached the law in any way.

01:55 As my staff member continued his inquiries, he did hear repeated concerns

02:01 about Jonathan's engagement with young people, including the possibility

02:05 that he had engaged sexually with a person under the age of consent in the ACT,

02:12 which of course is 16.

02:14 No such person has come forward, and

02:17 we have not been able to find any evidence that such an interaction took place.

02:22 On Wednesday the 8th of November, my senior staffer gave me an initial briefing

02:28 on the information he had been able to collect.

02:30 With his formal reports, we're due on Friday the 10th of November.

02:33 On Thursday the 9th of November, we had a further discussion, and

02:39 I spoke with people who had raised the initial concerns,

02:42 which led me to stand Jonathan down from his duty as a Greens MLA.

02:47 Meaning that he shouldn't come to the office, attend functions or meetings, or

02:51 engage with electronic communications related to his role as an MLA.

02:55 He accepted this decision.

02:58 At this time, I also informed the rest of the Greens MLAs and

03:02 the staff directly employed in Jonathan's office.

03:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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