Three Liberal politicians accused of trying to improperly influence an ACT parliamentary inquiry have been cleared of contempt.
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Canberra Liberals Candice Burch and Elizabeth Lee, alongside leader Alistair Coe, were referred to a privileges committee over a flier they distributed to apartments in the inner north and south about an inquiry being held on rates rises.
Labor backbencher Bec Cody had alleged the Liberals had tried to corrupt the inquiry by directing submissions to party-owned website haveyoursay.net.au.
Ms Cody said the language of the flier - which said the ACT Labor-Greens government "unfairly" changed the methodology to determine land tax and rates for units, "without a mandate" and "without consultation" - prompted negative submissions.
She also said the Liberals had the opportunity to interfere with submissions before sending them onto the committee, opening up the possibility they had been biased in some way.
It later emerged 19 submissions had not been sent to the committee because they'd been caught in an outgoing spam filter.
But a tripartisan privileges committee absolved the Liberals of any conspiracy to hijack the inquiry.
They said there was no evidence to suggest the submissions had been skewed, as all bar one of the total submissions were against the rates rises.
"In fact, the only submission in favour of the change came through the Haveyoursay website," the committee wrote.
However the committee said there were concerns that the Liberal website was too similar to the ACT government's official consultation website - yoursay.act.gov.au.
A survey of people who'd filed submissions through the website showed most knew Haveyoursay was a political website, however one person said they thought it was administered through the ACT government and another thought it was from an NGO.
Greens leader Shane Rattenbury - who was chair of the privileges committee - mocked Haveyoursay when it was launched last May for its similarity to the ACT government's official consultation portal.
Asked about the potential for confusion, Mr Coe told the privileges committee he had used the "Have your say" expression in previous campaigns.
Questioned why the Liberals' usual colours were absent, Mr Coe said they were trying to be as impartial as possible in order to solicit genuine feedback.
But despite the explanation, the committee was concerned that because of the similarity in names and designm and the lack of obvious party branding, the site could have been mistaken for an official government site.
"The fact that it was a political party’s website could have been made clearer," the committee said.
The committee was also concerned users of the Liberal website weren't told the rates inquiry may chose not to accept their submissions, raising issues with the protection of privilege.
Users also weren't told how their information would be used by the Liberals.
The committee has urged the Assembly to formulate guidelines on the use of third-party websites for soliciting submissions in future.
