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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Lucy Bladen

James Milligan cleared over email

Canberra Liberals MLA James Milligan was the subject of a standard's commissioner investigation. Picture: Keegan Carroll

An investigation into Canberra Liberals MLA James Milligan has cleared him of an alleged misuse of private information related to emails he sent following last year's election.

Mr Milligan, who lost his seat at the 2020 election, faced scrutiny over an email he sent in which he appeared to promote his publishing business.

The email was sent following his election loss but there were questions as to whether he used his "constituent list" of email addresses to send the email.

However, the ACT Legislative Assembly's commissioner of standards Dr Ken Crispin dismissed the complaint as he could not find evidence that Mr Milligan had "inappropriately used information derived from his constituent list".

The commissioner also noted that Mr Milligan was not a member of the ACT Legislative Assembly when the email was sent.

Mr Milligan was re-elected to the territory's parliament following the resignation of former opposition leader Alistair Coe earlier this year.

The Yerrabi MLA referred himself to the commissioner over the emails, after the assembly's Speaker Joy Burch sought to move a motion that called on Mr Milligan to address the emails in a statement to the ACT parliament.

Opposition whip Jeremy Hanson took aim at the Speaker on Thursday over the motion, saying the Canberra Liberals were concerned about impartiality.

"I have to confess that this has caused some loss of confidence from the opposition in terms of impartiality and we've not gone as far as moving a substantive motion today but it is something that we have certainly considered," Mr Hanson said.

ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury argued that Mr Hanson was out of line, as he was not able to reflect on the speaker without introducing a substantive motion.

Assistant Speaker Johnathan Davis told Mr Hanson he was "skating on thin ice".

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