Members of the Legislative Assembly will be expected to take greater responsibility for the actions of their staff following reviews of the handling of allegations made against a Greens member last year.
A review of the way Shane Rattenbury and Emma Davidson, both Greens ministers, handled allegations against Johnathan Davis in November last year did not make any findings against the pair.
But a report by the Assembly's standards commissioner, Ken Crispin KC, criticised the "inappropriate" way Mr Rattenbury's executive chief of staff interviewed a young complainant.
The Assembly is now expected to adopt a new clause in its code of conduct for MLAs.
The clause will require members to "take all reasonable steps to ensure that, as far as practicable, their personal staff are mindful of the member's commitment to this code of conduct".
Members will also need to take steps to ensure their staff "take no action for or on behalf of the member of the member's office which, if taken by the member personally, would be contrary to this code of conduct".
Mr Crispin reviewed whether Mr Rattenbury or Ms Davidson breached the members' code of conduct in the way they handled the allegations Mr Davis had an inappropriate, but not illegal, sexual relationship with a 17-year-old boy and had sex with a 15-year-old.
The report was tabled in the Legislative Assembly this week.
Mr Davis, who has declined to comment on all allegations, resigned on November 12 from the Greens and as a member of the Assembly.
Mr Crispin was critical of the way Mr Rattenbury's executive chief of staff, Guy Bromley, interviewed an 18-year-old man who made a series of allegations about Mr Davis' behaviour.
"The manner in which the interview was conducted by Mr Bromley suggests that he was primarily concerned with ascertaining the nature of the allegations against Mr Davis rather than with the welfare of the young person," Mr Crispin wrote.
"Whilst I do not doubt that he tried to conduct the interview sensitively, the questions he asked were intrusive and predictably distressing. Of course, neither Ms Davidson nor Mr Rattenbury were present at the interview and the Code of Conduct does not impose vicarious ethical responsibility on Members for actions taken by staff that they neither authorised nor expected."
The Assembly's standing committee on administration and procedure said it held a strong view that members, as employers, are responsible for the actions and activities of their staff.
"This is not dissimilar to that of ministerial responsibility for the actions of directorates and agencies," the committee's report said.
Mr Crispin's report found there were obvious grounds for concern with the way the matter was handled, and it was understandable for Ms Davidson to refer "rumours" about Mr Davis to Mr Bromley.
Despite sound intentions, Mr Bromley adopted a course of action that was "inappropriate".
"I have no reason to doubt that Mr Bromley acted in good faith. He was given a difficult task, apparently with little guidance as to how he should proceed and could reasonably have assumed that the only way he could clarify the nature of any allegations against Mr Davis was by interviewing the young person," Mr Crispin wrote.
